What is an AWS VPC?
A VPC is a logically isolated network in AWS where you define subnets, routing, and security boundaries.
- Private cloud network
- Subnets split public and private zones
- Security groups and routes matter
Quick recall
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What is auto scaling?
Auto scaling adjusts capacity based on demand or policy so performance and cost stay balanced.
- Scale out on load
- Scale in when safe
- Needs good metrics and startup time awareness
What is AWS EC2?
EC2 is AWS virtual compute where you manage the instance OS, networking, and app runtime yourself.
- Virtual machine in AWS
- You manage patching and scaling
- Common for lift-and-shift workloads
What is AWS IAM?
IAM manages who can do what in AWS through users, roles, policies, and least-privilege permissions.
- Authentication plus authorization
- Roles are preferred for workloads
- Least privilege is the design goal
What is CI/CD?
CI keeps code integrated and tested frequently; CD automates delivery so releases are repeatable and low risk.
- CI catches breakages early
- CD shortens release cycle
- Pipelines should be fast and reliable
What is EKS?
EKS is Amazon's managed Kubernetes control plane service.
- AWS manages control plane
- You still manage nodes or Fargate choices
- Useful when you want Kubernetes without self-hosting masters
What is Horizontal Pod Autoscaler?
HPA scales the number of pod replicas based on metrics such as CPU or custom signals.
- More replicas under load
- Depends on metrics availability
- Good for stateless horizontal scaling
What is infrastructure as code?
Infrastructure as code defines infrastructure in versioned files so environments are reproducible and reviewable.
- Treat infra changes like code
- Supports repeatable provisioning
- Improves auditability
What is Kubernetes Ingress?
Ingress defines HTTP/S routing into cluster services, usually through an ingress controller.
- Layer 7 routing
- Path and host based rules
- Needs a controller to do anything
Why are environment variables used?
Environment variables separate configuration from code and help vary behavior across environments.
- Good for secrets references and URLs
- Avoid hardcoding
- Still manage secrets securely
Why do health checks matter?
Health checks tell the platform whether an instance has started correctly and whether it can safely receive traffic.
- Liveness detects stuck process
- Readiness gates traffic
- Bad checks cause restarts or false confidence
Fine-tuning vs prompting
Prompting changes the instructions at inference time, while fine-tuning changes model weights using additional training data.
- Prompting is faster to iterate
- Fine-tuning can shape style or behavior
- Use the lighter tool first