Everything in Cloud Platforms, page 5
Data warehouse versus OLTP database
Warehouses use columnar storage for analytical scans, OLTP uses row storage for fast transactions, each fits a different workload.
Strong versus eventual consistency in NoSQL
Strong reads see the latest write at higher latency and cost, eventual reads may be stale but are cheaper and faster, match the choice to stakes.
RDS Multi-AZ versus Read Replicas
Multi-AZ is a synchronous standby for failover, replicas are async for read scaling, combine both when needed.
How does caching reduce database load?
Cache-aside reads, RAM-speed lookups, TTL plus invalidation.
Read replicas in managed relational databases
A read replica is an async copy of the primary that serves read-only queries, offloading the primary and scaling read-heavy workloads; expect replication lag.
Choosing relational vs NoSQL managed databases
Choose relational for complex relationships, joins, flexible queries, and strong transactions; choose NoSQL for known access patterns needing massive horizontal scale.
Architecting for HIPAA or PCI DSS compliance
Isolate sensitive data in restricted networks and accounts, encrypt at rest and in transit with managed keys, enforce least-privilege access, and keep immutable audit logs.
Centralized logging and threat detection across accounts
Organization-wide trails ship logs to a locked-down central security account, store in immutable append-only storage, and aggregate threat detection findings centrally with least-privilege…
Dynamic database credential rotation for microservices
A secrets manager issues short-lived per-service credentials, services authenticate by workload identity and fetch or refresh secrets without restart, leases expire and rotate automatically.
Shared responsibility model across service tiers
Provider secures the cloud infrastructure; you secure what you put in it; the line shifts with abstraction. For OS patching, you patch IaaS VMs but the provider patches a managed database OS.
Automating a no-public-IP governance rule
Use organization-level policy guardrails (SCP, Azure Policy, Org Policy) to deny public IP attachment before creation, applied across all accounts.
Service-managed vs customer-managed vs BYOK keys
Service-managed keys are automatic but opaque; CMK gives you control over rotation, policy, and revocation in a KMS; BYOK imports your own key material for compliance.
Granting a VM scoped storage access without static keys
Attach a least-privilege role or managed identity to the VM so it gets auto-rotating temporary credentials scoped to the bucket.
Security Groups vs NACLs
A security group is stateful and attached to instances or NICs; a NACL is stateless and applied at the subnet.
IAM Role vs IAM User
A user is a fixed identity with long-lived credentials for a person; a role is assumable with temporary credentials for workloads or cross-account access.
Accelerating uncacheable dynamic traffic globally
Terminate TLS at a nearby edge and ride the provider backbone via Global Accelerator or CDN dynamic acceleration; add edge compute; ultimately deploy multi-region.
Stable egress IPs for multi-region outbound traffic
Route outbound traffic through NAT gateways with allocated static IPs, or centralize egress so all regions exit through a fixed small IP set you can whitelist.
Site-to-Site VPN vs dedicated interconnect
VPN is quick, cheap, encrypted over public internet with variable latency; Direct Connect or ExpressRoute is a private dedicated link with consistent low latency, high bandwidth, longer lead time and…
CDN caching for static and dynamic content
Cache static assets with long TTLs and versioned filenames; bypass or short-cache dynamic per-user responses; invalidate via fingerprinted URLs not purges.
DNS routing policies for active-passive failover
A failover policy with health checks routes to primary and flips to secondary on failure; keep TTL low; pair with health checks not just policy.
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