Compute and containers: CLF-C02 study notes and practice questions
What to know about Compute and containers for the CLF-C02 exam, from the Cloud Technology and Services domain (34% of the exam guide), then 2 free questions to test it. Part of the CLF-C02 study guide.
Memory optimized: large data sets in memory (in-memory databases).
Storage optimized: high, fast local storage access (data warehousing).
Accelerated computing: GPUs and other accelerators (machine learning, graphics).
Serverless
“Serverless” means you don’t provision or manage servers, you don’t pay when nothing runs, and scaling is automatic. Lambda and Fargate are the main compute examples.
Common traps
Lambda for long jobs. A Lambda function runs for at most 15 minutes.
ECS vs EKS. EKS is for Kubernetes; ECS is AWS’s own orchestrator.
Fargate as an alternative to ECS. Fargate is a way to run ECS or EKS tasks without servers.
A company runs its containerized applications on self-managed Kubernetes in its own data center.
It wants to move them to AWS, keep the Kubernetes API and tools it already uses, and avoid running the Kubernetes control plane itself.
Which service should it use?
Choose one answer.
AA. Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR), which stores container images in private repositories
BB. Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), which runs containers on AWS using task definitions
CC. AWS Lambda, which runs short functions in response to events, with no servers to manage or patch
DD. Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), which runs a managed Kubernetes control plane
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: D
A. Wrong: ECR stores and manages container images. It does not run the applications or provide a Kubernetes control plane.
B. Wrong: ECS runs containers with its own AWS task and service model. It does not use the Kubernetes API, so the company would need to change its tools.
C. Wrong: Lambda runs short functions in response to events. It is not designed to host the company's Kubernetes-based containerized applications.
D. Right: Correct. EKS runs a managed Kubernetes control plane, and it is certified Kubernetes-conformant. The company can use standard Kubernetes tools without operating the control plane itself. Learn more: What is Amazon EKS? (opens in a new tab)
Explanation
Amazon EKS runs a managed Kubernetes control plane that is certified Kubernetes-conformant, so standard Kubernetes tools and applications work with little change. ECS, ECR and Lambda each do a different job and do not provide the Kubernetes API.
B. Wrong: Incorrect. The team builds its own application code. Elastic Beanstalk runs the code that is uploaded, but it does not write it.
C. Right: Correct. When the team uploads its code, Elastic Beanstalk configures load balancing for the environment as part of creating it, so the team does not set up a load balancer by hand.
D. Wrong: Incorrect. The team designs its own database. Elastic Beanstalk does not design tables or schemas.
E. Right: Correct. Elastic Beanstalk dynamically scales the environment as load changes, adding or removing instances, so the team does not manage capacity by hand.
F. Wrong: Incorrect. The team decides how users sign in as part of its application design. Elastic Beanstalk does not choose who may sign in.
Explanation
Elastic Beanstalk takes the application's source bundle and provisions the EC2 instances, configures load balancing, sets up health monitoring and scales the environment. The team still writes its code, designs its database and decides how its users sign in.
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