AWS Config rule types, configuration timeline, auto-remediation pattern with SSM Automation, and the exam decision framework for compliance vs prevention vs audit.
CloudTrail event types, trail configuration, LookupEvents for free 90-day history, and the CloudTrail → CloudWatch Logs → Metric Filter → Alarm alerting pattern.
CloudWatch Agent config structure, IAM requirements, SSM Parameter Store distribution pattern, and the mental model mapping from Node Exporter to AWS-native monitoring.
Built a log group, shipped fake HAProxy 503 events, created a metric filter, and confirmed Sum=15 in GetMetricStatistics — the full logs-to-alerts pipeline.
Built a CloudWatch alarm on ASG capacity with SNS email delivery — covering metric tiers, alarm states, treat-missing-data, and composite alarms.
Built an EventBridge rule catching ASG launch events and routing to SNS — confirmed end-to-end email delivery with full event JSON payload.
X-Ray architecture, sampling rules, annotation-based filtering, and the exam decision framework for when to use X-Ray vs CloudWatch metrics.
Built a full ALB + ASG stack from CLI — listener, target group, health checks, ELB-driven replacement — mapped against the HAProxy mental model.
Lifecycle hooks intercept ASG instance transitions — proven live by observing Pending:Wait and manually signaling CONTINUE, mirroring the Packer/systemd staged-start pattern.
The full self-healing loop: ELB health checks drive ASG replacement, and Instance Refresh rolls new AMIs fleet-wide without downtime — with a live lab and a real debugging case.
Decision framework and service comparison for multi-region AWS architectures — which data service to use, how replication works, and the full stack pattern the exam tests.
Route 53 routing policy patterns for DOP-C02 — when to use failover vs weighted vs latency routing, and how health checks integrate for automatic regional failover.
A hands-on walkthrough of how ASG's control loop detects instance failure and automatically replaces it, using a live lab in devopslab-vpc.
CloudFormation Parameters allow users to provide values at deployment time, Mappings provide static key-value lookups, and intrinsic functions dynamically reference and transform values inside templates. Together, these features allow a single CloudFormation template to support multiple environments, Regions, and deployment scenarios.
AWS CodePipeline provides CI/CD orchestration, CodeBuild compiles and packages application code, and CodeDeploy automates application deployments to supported compute environments. Together, they form a flexible AWS-native CI/CD workflow.
CloudFormation drift detection identifies when AWS resources managed by a CloudFormation stack differ from the configuration defined in the stack template. This article covers the drift lifecycle, the AWS CLI workflow, a hands-on Security Group example, operational considerations, and the relationship between drift detection and infrastructure as code.
Required for aws ssm start-session (both interactive shell access and
port-forwarding sessions) against platform instances. This is a local CLI
plugin, not part of the AWS CLI itself, and it is not committed to this
repo — install it once per machine:
curl "https://s3.amazonaws.com/session-manager-downloads/plugin/latest/ubuntu_64bit/session-manager-plugin.deb" \
-o "session-manager-plugin.deb"
sudo dpkg -i session-manager-plugin.deb
Verify:
session-manager-plugin
Should print a version/usage message, not “command not found.”
(For non-Ubuntu/WSL environments, see the official AWS docs for the appropriate package: Session Manager Plugin installation instructions.)