AWS
EC2 Instance Families Compared: Choosing Between t, m, c, and r
A working standard for choosing EC2 instance types: how to read type names (family, generation, attributes), when the t burstable model fits and when it backfires, the vCPU-to-memory ratios behind m, c, and r with large-size price comparisons, choosing between Graviton, Intel, and AMD, and sizing from CloudWatch and Compute Optimizer measurements.
gp3 vs io2 — How to Choose an EBS Volume Type
A working standard for choosing EBS volume types: the legacy of gp2's size-coupled, burst-credit model, gp3's independent provisioning and raised ceilings (80,000 IOPS, 2,000MB/s), the conditions that actually justify io2 Block Express, sizing IOPS from measurements, and converting gp2 to gp3 with no downtime.
Migrating EC2 to Graviton — Real Savings and a Migration Checklist
What moving x86 instances to Graviton (arm64) actually saves, and the procedure for getting there: the generation landscape (Graviton4 mainstream, Graviton5 GA), which workloads move easily and where it gets stuck, multi-architecture image builds, canary cutover, and extending to RDS and Lambda.
AWS Services and Settings That Quietly Leak Money — a Standing Checklist
The waste that raises your AWS baseline without ever making a spike: leftover gp2 volumes, public IPv4 addresses, NAT Gateway by design, logs retained forever, old instance generations, abandoned load balancers, S3 storage classes, and dev environments running around the clock — with how to check each one.
When Your AWS Bill Suddenly Jumps — the 10 Most Common Causes
A field guide for the month your AWS bill doubles: the order for finding the culprit, and the ten causes that come up most in practice — NAT Gateway data processing, CloudWatch Logs ingestion, snapshot accumulation, data transfer, expiring RIs and Savings Plans — each with how to confirm it and what to do.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #15 Full-Scale Multiple-Choice Mock Exam — 50 Questions + Explanations
The final post of the SOA-C03 series. Matched to the real exam's domain weights (monitoring 22% , reliability 22% , deployment automation 22% , networking 18% , security 16%), you solve 50 questions and find your weak domains through each question's answer and explanation. Solve them on the clock, then go back to the relevant domain post to shore up any gaps.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #14 Exam Tips and Common Operational Scenario Mistakes
The fourteenth post of the SOA-C03 series, a final review right before the exam. It covers the common pitfalls that cut across domains, the keywords that separate similar services, how to read scenario questions, time management strategy, and a final pre-exam checklist.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #13 Domain 5-2 Security — Config, CloudTrail, GuardDuty, Security Hub, KMS
The thirteenth post in the SOA-C03 series covers detection and audit, plus encryption, the second axis of the security domain. It covers how to audit API calls with CloudTrail, how to evaluate configuration compliance and auto-remediate with AWS Config, GuardDuty threat detection, the unified score in Security Hub, and KMS key operations.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #12 Domain 5-1 Security — IAM,Organizations,Multi-account Operations
The twelfth post of the SOA-C03 series covers identity and multi-account governance, the first topic of the security domain (16%). It covers IAM permission operations, the credential report and IAM Access Analyzer, MFA enforcement, AWS Organizations and SCPs, and multi-account standardization.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #11 Domain 4-2 Networking — Route 53,CloudFront,Delivery Operations
The eleventh post of the SOA-C03 series covers the second axis of the networking domain: DNS and content delivery. From an operations perspective, it organizes Route 53 record types and routing policies, health checks and failover, CloudFront caching and origin configuration, ACM certificates, and delivery troubleshooting such as caching and latency.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #10 Domain 4-1 Networking — VPC Operations and Connectivity Troubleshooting
The tenth post of the SOA-C03 series covers VPC operations, the first topic in the networking domain (18%). It covers route tables and gateways, the difference between security groups and NACLs, NAT and VPC endpoints, peering and Transit Gateway, and where to check and in what order when connectivity fails.
AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer - Associate (SOA-C03) #9 Domain 3-3 Deployment — Container Operations (ECS, EKS, ECR)
The ninth post of the SOA-C03 series covers container operations, newly added in SOA-C03. It covers the difference between ECS and EKS, choosing between the Fargate and EC2 launch types, how to store and scan images with ECR, container logging and monitoring, and deployment and scaling operations.