Architecting on AWS Certification Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield Architecting on AWS Certification facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. Which CloudWatch metric would an architect monitor to detect that an Application Load Balancer has no healthy targets available? → HealthyHostCount
2. Which AWS service can be used to implement a dead-letter queue to capture messages that repeatedly fail processing in an SQS-based architecture? → Amazon SQS itself
3. What AWS feature allows an Auto Scaling group to replace unhealthy EC2 instances automatically without manual intervention? → Health check replacement
4. An architect wants to improve the read performance of a relational database without scaling the primary instance. Which AWS solution achieves this? → Add RDS Read Replicas and direct read traffic to them
5. Which EC2 instance purchasing model is best suited for a batch processing workload that can tolerate interruptions in exchange for the lowest possible cost? → Spot Instances
6. Which AWS Direct Connect connection type is provided by an AWS partner and shares bandwidth with other customers? → Hosted connection
7. Which Application Load Balancer feature allows routing of requests to different target groups based on URL path patterns? → Path-based routing
8. An architect wants to right-size EC2 instances based on historical CPU and memory utilization. Which AWS service provides these recommendations? → AWS Compute Optimizer
9. What is a near-miss report in Architecting on AWS Certification safety management? → Documentation of an event that could have resulted in harm but did not
10. Which VPC feature allows two VPCs to route traffic between each other using private IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, as if they were within the same network? → VPC Peering
11. Which AWS architectural principle recommends designing systems assuming that components will fail? → Design for failure
12. What is the primary goal of regulatory compliance in Architecting on AWS Certification practice? → Ensuring adherence to laws and standards that govern professional practice
13. What is the maximum number of route tables that can be associated with a single subnet in a VPC? → One
14. How does professional liability insurance protect Architecting on AWS Certification practitioners in joint design & preparation? → It covers financial losses from claims of negligence, errors, or omissions in services
15. What is a root cause analysis in Architecting on AWS Certification quality assurance? → A systematic investigation to identify the fundamental underlying cause of a problem
16. Which Route 53 routing policy sends traffic to the healthiest endpoint and can automatically failover when a primary endpoint becomes unhealthy? → Failover routing
17. What is a corrective action plan in Architecting on AWS Certification compliance? → A documented strategy to address compliance deficiencies and prevent their recurrence
18. What is the hierarchy of controls in Architecting on AWS Certification risk management? → Elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, then PPE
19. Which of the following services offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) can be used to create and manage virtual machines (VMs) in the cloud? → Amazon EC2
20. What is the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle in Architecting on AWS Certification quality management? → An iterative four-step method for continuous improvement of processes and products
21. An architect is designing a VPC and needs subnets that span multiple Availability Zones for high availability. What is true about AWS subnet placement? → A subnet is restricted to a single Availability Zone
22. What is a needs assessment in Architecting on AWS Certification joint design & preparation practice? → A systematic process to identify gaps between current conditions and desired outcomes
23. How does professional liability insurance protect Architecting on AWS Certification practitioners in welding procedures & techniques? → It covers financial losses from claims of negligence, errors, or omissions in services
24. How does professional liability insurance protect Architecting on AWS Certification practitioners in equipment maintenance & calibration? → It covers financial losses from claims of negligence, errors, or omissions in services
25. Why is documentation critical in Architecting on AWS Certification regulatory compliance? → It provides evidence of compliance and creates a defensible record of activities
26. What is the purpose of a quality audit in Architecting on AWS Certification practice? → To systematically evaluate whether quality standards and procedures are being followed
27. Which Amazon RDS feature automatically creates a standby replica in a different Availability Zone and promotes it if the primary fails? → Multi-AZ deployment
28. What is a needs assessment in Architecting on AWS Certification blueprint reading & symbols practice? → A systematic process to identify gaps between current conditions and desired outcomes
29. What is a key performance indicator (KPI) in Architecting on AWS Certification quality management? → A measurable value demonstrating how effectively objectives are being achieved
30. Which CloudFront feature allows an architect to serve different content to users based on the type of device they are using (mobile vs. desktop)? → Lambda@Edge