Domain 1: SDLC Automation

• Apply concepts required to automate a CI/CD pipeline
• Set up repositories
• Set up build services
• Integrate automated testing (e.g., unit tests, integrity tests)
• Set up deployment products/services
• Orchestrate multiple pipeline stages
• Determine source control strategies and how to implement them
• Determine a workflow for integrating code changes from multiple contributors
• Assess security requirements and recommend code repository access design
• Reconcile running application versions to repository versions (tags)
• Differentiate different source control types
• Apply concepts required to automate and integrate testing
• Run integration tests as part of code merge process
• Run load/stress testing and benchmark applications at scale
• Measure application health based on application exit codes (robust Health Check)
• Automate unit tests to check pass/fail, code coverage o CodePipeline, CodeBuild, etc.
• Integrate tests with pipeline
• Apply concepts required to build and manage artifacts securely
• Distinguish storage options based on artifacts security classification
• Translate application requirements into Operating System and package configuration (build specs)
• Determine the code/environment dependencies and required resources o Example: CodeDeploy AppSpec, CodeBuild buildspec
• Run a code build process
• Determine deployment/delivery strategies (e.g., A/B, Blue/green, Canary, Red/black) and how to implement them using AWS services
• Determine the correct delivery strategy based on business needs
• Critique existing deployment strategies and suggest improvements
• Recommend DNS/routing strategies (e.g., Route 53, ELB, ALB, load balancer) based on business continuity goals
• Verify deployment success/failure and automate rollbacks

Domain 2: Configuration Management and Infrastructure as Code

• Determine deployment services based on deployment needs
• Demonstrate knowledge of process flows of deployment models
• Given a specific deployment model, classify and implement relevant AWS services to meet requirements
• Given the requirement to have DynamoDB choose CloudFormation instead of OpsWorks
• Determine what to do with rolling updates
• Determine application and infrastructure deployment models based on business needs
• Balance different considerations (cost, availability, time to recovery) based on business requirements to choose the best deployment model
• Determine a deployment model given specific AWS services
• Analyze risks associated with deployment models and relevant remedies
• Apply security concepts in the automation of resource provisioning
• Choose the best automation tool given requirements
• Demonstrate knowledge of security best practices for resource provisioning (e.g., encrypting data bags, generating credentials on the fly)
• Review IAM policies and assess if sufficient but least privilege is granted for all lifecycle stages of a deployment (e.g., create, update, promote)
• Review credential management solutions (e.g., EC2 parameter store, third party)
• Build the automation o CloudFormation template, Chef Recipe, Cookbooks, Code pipeline, etc.
• Determine how to implement lifecycle hooks on a deployment
• Determine appropriate integration techniques to meet project requirements
• Choose the appropriate hook solution (e.g., implement leader node selection after a node failure) in an Auto Scaling group
• Evaluate hook implementation for failure impacts (if a remote call fails, if a dependent service is temporarily unavailable (i.e., Amazon S3), and recommend resiliency improvements
• Evaluate deployment rollout procedures for failure impacts and evaluate rollback/recovery processes
• Apply concepts required to manage systems using AWS configuration management tools and services
• Identify pros and cons of AWS configuration management tools
• Demonstrate knowledge of configuration management components
• Show the ability to run configuration management services end to end with no assistance while adhering to industry best practices

Domain 3: Monitoring and Logging

• Determine how to set up the aggregation, storage, and analysis of logs and metrics
• Implement and configure distributed logs collection and processing (e.g., agents, syslog, flumed, CW agent)
• Aggregate logs (e.g., Amazon S3, CW Logs, intermediate systems (EMR), Kinesis FH –
• Transformation, ELK/BI)
• Implement custom CW metrics, Log subscription filters
• Manage Log storage lifecycle (e.g., CW to S3, S3 lifecycle, S3 events)
• Apply concepts required to automate monitoring and event management of an environment
• Parse logs (e.g., Amazon S3 data events/event logs/ELB/ALB/CF access logs) and correlate with other alarms/events(e.g., CW events to AWS Lambda) and take appropriate action
• Use CloudTrail/VPC flow logs for detective control (e.g., CT, CW log filters, Athena, NACL or
• WAF rules) and take dependent actions (AWS step) based on error handling logic (state machine)
• Configure and implement Patch/inventory/state management using ESM (SSM), Inspector,
• CodeDeploy, OpsWorks, and CW agents o EC2 retirement/maintenance
• Handle scaling/failover events (e.g., ASG, DB HA, route table/DNS update, Application Config,
• Auto Recovery, PH dashboard, TA)
• Determine how to automate the creation of monitoring
• Apply concepts required to audit, log, and monitor operating systems, infrastructures, and applications
• Monitor end to end service metrics (DDB/S3) using available AWS tools (X-ray with EB and Lambda)
• Verify environment/OS state through auditing (Inspector), Config rules, CloudTrail (process and action), and AWS APIs
• Enable, configure, and analyze custom metrics (e.g., Application metrics, memory, KCL/KPL)and take action
• Ensure container monitoring (e.g., task state, placement, logging, port mapping, LB)
• Distinguish between services that enable service level or OS level monitoring o Example: AWS services that use OS agents (e.g., Inspector, SSM)
• Determine how to implement tagging and other metadata strategies
• Segregate authority based on tagging (lifecycle stages – dev/prod) with Condition context keys
• Utilize Amazon S3 system/user-defined metadata for classification and automation
• Design and implement tag-based deployment groups with CodeDeploy
• Best practice for cost allocation/optimization with tagging

Domain 4: Policies and Standards Automation

• Apply concepts required to enforce standards for logging, metrics, monitoring, testing, and security
• Detect, report, and respond to governance and security violations
• Apply logging standards across application, operating system, and infrastructure
• Apply context specific application health and performance monitoring
• Outline standards for delivery models for logs and metrics (e.g., JSON, XML, Data Normalization)
• Determine how to optimize cost through automation
• Prioritize automation effort to reduce labor costs
• Implement right sizing of workload based on metrics
• Assess ways to improve time to market through automating process orchestration and repeatable tasks
• Diagnose outliers to determine use case fit o Example: Configuration drift
• Measure and automate cost optimization through events o Example: Trusted Advisor
• Apply concepts required to implement governance strategies
• Generalize governance standards across CI/CD pipeline
• Outline and measure the real-time status of compliance with governance strategies
• Report on compliance with governance strategies
• Deploy governance policies related to self-service capabilities o Example: Service Catalog, CFN Nag

Domain 5: Incident and Event Response

• Troubleshoot issues and determine how to restore operations
• Given an issue, evaluate how to narrow down the unhealthy components as quickly as possible
• Given an increase in load, determine what steps to take to mitigate the impact
• Determine the causes and impacts of a failure o Example: Deployment, operations
• Determine the best way to restore operations after a failure occurs
• Investigate and correlate logged events with application components o Example: application source code
• Determine how to automate event management and alerting
• Set up automated restores from backup in the event of a catastrophic failure
• Set up methods to deliver alerts and notifications that are appropriate for different types of events
• Assess the quality/actionability of alerts
• Configure metrics appropriate to an application’s SLAs
• Proactively update limits
• Apply concepts required to implement automated healing
• Set up the correct scaling strategy to enable auto-healing when a failure occurs (e.g., with
• Auto Scaling policies)
• Use the correct rollback strategy to avoid impact from failed deployments
• Configure Route 53 to ensure cross-Region failover
• Detect and respond to maintenance or Spot termination events
• Apply concepts required to set up event-driven automated actions
• Configure Lambda functions or CloudWatch actions to implement automated actions
• Set up CloudWatch event rules and/or Config rules and targets
• Use AWS Systems Manager or Step Functions to coordinate components (e.g., Lambda, use maintenance windows)
• Configure a build/roll-out process to automatically respond to critical software updates

Domain 6: High Availability, Fault Tolerance, and Disaster Recovery

• Determine appropriate use of multi-AZ versus multi-Region architectures
• Determine deployment strategy based on HA/DR requirements
• Determine data replication strategy based on cost and durability requirements
• Determine infrastructure, platform, and services based on HA/DR requirements
• Design for HA/FT/DR based on service availability (i.e., global/regional/single AZ)
• Determine how to implement high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance
• Design deployment strategy to support HA/FT/scalability
• Assess statefulness of application infrastructure components
• Use load balancing to distribute traffic across multiple AZ/ASGs/instance types (spot/M4 vs C4) /targets
• Use appropriate caching solutions to improve availability and performance
• Determine the right services based on business needs (e.g., RTO/RPO, cost)
• Determine cost-effective storage solution for your application o Example: tiered, archival, EBS type, hot/cold
• Choose a database platform and configuration to meet business requirements
• Choose a cost-effective compute platform based on business requirements o Example: Spot
• Choose a deployment service/model based on business requirements o Example: Code Deploy, Blue/Green deployment
• Determine when to use managed service vs. self-managed infrastructure (Docker on EC2 vs. ECS)
• Determine how to design and automate disaster recovery strategies
• Automate failure detection
• Automate components/environment recovery
• Choose appropriate deployment strategy for environment recovery
• Design automation to support failover in hybrid environment
• Evaluate a deployment for points of failure
• Determine appropriate deployment-specific health checks
• Implement failure detection during deployment
• Implement failure event handling/response
• Ensure that resources/components/processes exist to react to failures during deployment
• Look for exit codes on each event of the deployment
• Map errors to different points of deployment