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AWS Solutions Architect — Storage, Databases & Integration flashcards

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Scenario questions on S3 classes and features, Snow, Storage Gateway and DataSync, RDS and Aurora, DynamoDB design, ElastiCache and purpose-built databases, SQS, SNS, EventBridge and Kinesis, Step Functions, API Gateway and AppSync, Athena, Glue and EMR, and the four DR strategies.

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Learn deck · part of AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate · written against: Exam SAA-C03 guide. Updated 2026-10-10.

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  1. Backups are read about once a month but must be available instantly and survive an AZ loss. Which S3 storage class?
    S3 Standard-IA — the same durability and millisecond access as Standard at a lower storage price, offset by a per-GB retrieval charge and a minimum storage duration, so it only pays off for data read rarely.
    S3
  2. Thumbnails that can be regenerated from originals are accessed rarely. Which other infrequent-access class cuts cost further than Standard-IA, and what is the trade-off?
    S3 One Zone-IA — stored in a single AZ for a lower price, so an AZ loss destroys the data.

    Use it only for data you can regenerate or that is replicated elsewhere.
    S3
  3. Hundreds of terabytes of archive data must reach AWS from a site with a slow internet link. Which option?
    AWS Snowball Edge — a ruggedized appliance shipped to you; copy data locally, ship it back, and AWS imports it into S3.

    Choose Storage Optimized for bulk transfer and Compute Optimized when edge processing is needed.

    Watch out: AWS closed Snowball Edge to new customers in November 2025 (existing customers keep it); the exam may still expect it.
    Data Transfer & Hybrid Storage
  4. An RDS database must survive an AZ failure without manual intervention. Which feature, and can the standby serve reads?
    Multi-AZ deployment — a synchronous standby in another AZ with automatic failover.

    In the classic single-standby form the standby serves no traffic; only the newer Multi-AZ DB cluster option adds readable standbys.
    Relational Databases
  5. A DynamoDB table uses the current date as its partition key, and all writes go to today's value. What is the problem and the fix?
    A hot partition — throughput is divided across partitions by key, so one heavily used key value throttles while others idle.

    Use a high-cardinality key such as a device ID, or add a random suffix (write sharding).
    DynamoDB
  6. Session data shared across a fleet of web servers needs sub-millisecond reads and must survive a cache node failure. Which service, and why Redis over Memcached?
    ElastiCache (Valkey or Redis OSS) — these engines offer replication with Multi-AZ failover, persistence, pub/sub and rich data types such as sorted sets.

    Compare: Memcached is simpler and multithreaded, best for a plain cache of data you can cheaply regenerate; only its serverless option replicates data across AZs.
    Caching & Purpose-Built Databases
  7. Messages must be processed in order per customer and never duplicated. Which SQS queue type, and what do you give up?
    An SQS FIFO queue — ordering within a message group ID and exactly-once processing via deduplication IDs, at lower throughput than a standard queue.

    Compare: standard queues offer best-effort ordering and at-least-once delivery.
    Messaging & Streaming
  8. An order workflow has sequential steps, retries and a human approval that may take days. Which service and workflow type?
    AWS Step Functions with a Standard workflow — a serverless state machine with retry, catch, parallel and wait states, running for up to a year.

    Compare: Express workflows handle high-volume, short (up to five minutes) event processing.
    Application Integration
  9. Analysts want to run SQL on log files already sitting in S3 without loading them anywhere. Which service, and how is cost controlled?
    Amazon Athena — serverless and billed per data scanned, so use columnar formats (Parquet, ORC), compression and partitioning. Table definitions come from the Glue Data Catalog.
    Analytics
  10. Order the four AWS disaster recovery strategies from cheapest and slowest to most expensive and fastest.
    Backup and restore → pilot light → warm standby → multi-site active-active. RTO and RPO shrink in that order as cost rises.
    Disaster Recovery

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About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Checked against the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C03) exam guide (topic list only; no text copied).
  • Checked against the AWS public documentation for S3, Storage Gateway, DataSync, RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, Kinesis, Step Functions, API Gateway, Athena, Glue and EMR (reference only; no sentences reproduced).
  • Checked against the AWS Well-Architected Reliability Pillar whitepaper for the disaster recovery strategies (reference only).

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