The AWS Trusted Advisor is an online tool that provides real-time guidance to help users provision their resources following AWS best practices. Trusted Advisor inspects users’ AWS environment and makes recommendations for saving cost, improving system performance and reliability, or closing security gaps.
For example, Trusted Advisor provides advice in five different categories:
| Trusted Advisor Categories | |
|---|---|
| Cost Optimization | Provides recommendations for where you can potentially save money in your AWS environment |
| Performance | Suggests ways to improve speed and responsiveness in your applications |
| Security | Highlights potential security vulnerabilities and suggests to mitigate them |
| Fault Tolerance | Identifies areas where you can improve reliability and uptime |
| Service Limits | Points out where you might be close to reaching AWS service usage limits |
AWS Health Dashboard
The AWS Health Dashboard provides a personalized view into the performance and availability of the AWS services underlying AWS resources. The dashboard also offers remediation guidance for resources that might be at risk.
For instance, the AWS Health Dashboard includes data on events that might affect the performance of your AWS services, enabling you to identify and act on any potential issues proactively.
AWS Health API
The AWS Health API, on the other hand, provides programmatic access to AWS Health events, letting developers build applications or integrations that can directly utilize this information. This means you can automate responses to specific events or issues identified by the AWS Health Dashboard.
For example, AWS Health API might be used to generate an automatic ticket in response to an Amazon Reliability Engineering (RE) issue. A JSON object representing the issue could be delivered to an incident management system for action via AWS Lambda:
import boto3
from botocore.exceptions import BotoCoreError, ClientError
session = boto3.Session()
health = session.client(‘health’)
def lambda_handler(event, context):
try:
response = health.describe_events_for_organization(
filter={
‘eventTypeCodes’: [‘AWS_EC2_INSTANCE_LAUNCH_FAILURE’],
},
locale=’en’
)
except ClientError as e:
print(“Unexpected error: %s” % e)
return None
else:
return response
This script monitors for EC2 Instance Launch Failures and could be set up to automatically notify a developer or create a support ticket when it recognizes such an event.
By understanding and utilizing these tools, individuals can effectively manage and optimize costs of their AWS environments. AWS Trusted Advisor assists in making cost-saving and performance-boosting suggestions, the AWS Health Dashboard provides a clear overview of the performance of your AWS services and the AWS Health API enables you to programmatically deal with AWS Health events. This understanding of the three tools can be an asset for anyone preparing for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) exam.
Practice Test
True or False: The primary role of AWS Trusted Advisor is to provide automated solutions for financial optimization.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: AWS Trusted Advisor is more than just for financial optimization. It covers five pillars which are cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits.
The AWS Health Dashboard provides real-time information on AWS service, resources, and events that directly impact costs.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: The AWS Health Dashboard provides visibility into service health and account details, events, and affected resources which can impact costs by affecting resource availability and application performance.
Which of the following helps in managing access to AWS Health Dashboard?
- a) IAM
- b) AWS Management Console
- c) S3
- d) AWS Trusted Advisor
Answer: a) IAM
Explanation: Identity and Access Management (IAM) is responsible for controlling access at service level in AWS including the AWS Health Dashboard.
Multiple Choice: What is the primary purpose of the AWS Health API?
- a) To retrieve data related to cost optimization
- b) To retrieve health information about services affected by AWS outages
- c) To monitor the usage of individual resources
- d) To provide alerts for billing purposes
Answer: b) To retrieve health information about services affected by AWS outages
Explanation: AWS Health API is a tool to programmatically retrieve personalized information related to AWS service, resource, and any event that can directly impact your application that may also affect cost.
True or False: AWS Trusted Advisor cannot actually provide advisory support for cost optimization.
- True
- False
Answer: False
Explanation: AWS Trusted Advisor can indeed provide advisory support based on real usage patterns to help reduce spendings and save costs. It’s one of the pillar of AWS Trusted Advisor service.
What are the five support plans offered by AWS?
- a) Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise
- b) Basic, Professional, Business, Enterprise
- c) Basic, Developer, Professional, Enterprise
- d) Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise, Professional
Answer: a) Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise
Explanation: AWS offers four support plans namely: Basic, Developer, Business, and Enterprise. Each plan provides a different level of support.
True or False: AWS Health API provides programmatically access to AWS service events, resource issues that might impact applications running on AWS.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: The AWS Health API provides a comprehensive view of the state of your AWS resources, services, and accounts, help you to manage your environment for cost optimization.
The AWS Health Dashboard shows only:
- a) Affected resources
- b) Past events
- c) AWS service events
- d) Both a & c
Answer: d) Both a & c
Explanation: The AWS Health Dashboard provides a personalized view of the performance and availability of the AWS services underlying your AWS resources.
True or False: AWS Trusted Advisor is a tool that visually presents your recent AWS usage and recommendations for improving your AWS resources.
- True
- False
Answer: True
Explanation: The AWS Trusted Advisor provides guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices, optimizing your AWS environment for cost, performance, and security.
Multiple Choice: Which AWS service provides real-time health information?
- a) AWS Trusted Advisor
- b) AWS Shield
- c) AWS Health Dashboard
- d) CloudTrail
Answer: c) AWS Health Dashboard
Explanation: AWS Health Dashboard provides real-time, personalized details about AWS service health, which impacts cost by influencing resource availability and application performance.
Interview Questions
What does the Trusted Advisor in AWS do?
AWS Trusted Advisor is an online tool that provides real-time guidance to help you provision your resources following AWS best practices. It helps in improving performance, increasing security, and reducing costs within your AWS environment.
How does the AWS Trusted Advisor offer cost optimization?
The AWS Trusted Advisor keeps an eye on service usage and provides recommendations about where costs can be cut down. It can suggest idle resources that could be shut down and oversized resources that could be downgraded for cost optimization.
How does the AWS Health Dashboard aid in managing and monitoring the environment?
The AWS Health Dashboard provides a personalized view of the performance and availability of the AWS services underlying your AWS resources. It gives alerts and remediation guidance when AWS is experiencing events that may impact your environment.
What is the AWS Health API?
The AWS Health API is a service that programmatically accesses AWS Health events and other AWS account information. It provides details about AWS service disruptions, scheduled changes, and other important events across your environments.
How does the AWS Health API contribute to cost optimization?
The API enables you to automate incident response, integrate with in-house tools and systems, and improve issue resolution. By automating these practices, users can optimize costs due to less manual intervention.
What types of checks does the AWS Trusted Advisor provide?
Trusted Advisor provides checks within the categories of cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits.
How can integrating AWS Health API contribute to smoother operational performance?
By integrating AWS Health API, users can receive timely information about events, which helps to reduce time spent on resolving issues. This, in turn, leads to smoother operational performance.
Can AWS Health API help in disaster recovery planning?
Yes, AWS Health API can help by providing detailed information on ongoing operational events and providing historical trends for planning purposes.
How does AWS Trusted Advisor assist in performance improvement?
AWS Trusted Advisor analyzes your AWS environment and provides advice on common architectural best practices that can help improve system performance.
Can users define their own events in AWS Health Dashboard?
No, events on the AWS Health Dashboard are defined by AWS service teams.
Do all AWS customers have access to AWS Trusted Advisor?
While all AWS customers have access to seven core Trusted Advisor checks, full access to all checks and recommendations is available with the Business and Enterprise support plans.
Does AWS Health provide any proactive notifications?
Yes. AWS Health provides proactive notifications through AWS Health Dashboard and AWS Health API about AWS service disruptions and scheduled changes. This helps in better managing the resources under adverse conditions.
Do I need to pay extra to use the AWS Health API?
No, the AWS Health API is freely accessible and doesn’t incur extra charges.
What kind of security does AWS Trusted Advisor provide?
AWS Trusted Advisor offers guidance to help increase security by checking your rules and settings against generally established security best practices.
What tools can I use to interact with the AWS Health API?
You can interact with the AWS Health API using the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, and AWS SDKs.
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