Week 8 — Midterm

This is the middle of the semester and you should be ready for this exam. Please make sure that you have reviewed all material from weeks 1-7. In addition to the weekly materials, you should also have completed projects 1 and 2 as well as labs through Lab 7.

Use this as a checklist while you study. If any item is unfamiliar, revisit that week's materials, labs, and projects before the exam.

Foundations & Environment (Weeks 1–3)

• Cloud & AWS basics — what cloud computing provides, navigating the AWS Management Console, Regions vs. Availability Zones, and the AWS Free Tier.
• Windows command line — navigating folders and creating, listing, copying, and removing files in Command Prompt and PowerShell.
• *nix terminal — common shell commands (ls, cd, pwd, mkdir, cp, mv, rm, cat), absolute vs. relative paths.

IAM & Security (Weeks 4–5)

• Identities — the difference between users, groups, and roles, and when to use each.
• Policies — JSON policy structure (Effect, Action, Resource, Condition); managed vs. inline policies.
• Best practices — root vs. IAM users, least privilege, MFA, and rotating access keys.
• Policy evaluation — how Allow and Deny are resolved, and what condition keys do.

AWS CLI & Amazon S3 (Week 4)

• CLI configuration — aws configure, access key/secret, default Region and output; the credentials and config files; named profiles.
• S3 core concepts — buckets, objects, and keys; durability and the pay-for-what-you-use pricing model.
• Static website hosting — enabling hosting, setting index/error documents, and granting public read access.

Amazon DynamoDB (Weeks 6–7)

• NoSQL model — tables, items, and attributes; partition (hash) keys and optional sort (range) keys.
• DynamoDB Local — running DynamoDB on your machine (Java requirement), creating tables, and seeding data.
• Reading data — scan vs. query vs. filter expressions, and when each is appropriate.
• Node.js AWS SDK — initializing an SDK project and performing insert, update, scan, query, and delete operations.

If you can answer each of these confidently, you are in good shape for the midterm.

1. Explain the difference between an AWS Region and an Availability Zone, and why it matters when you deploy resources.
2. When would you use an IAM role instead of an IAM user?
3. Identify the four main elements of an IAM policy statement and what each one controls.
4. Where does the AWS CLI store your credentials and default settings, and how do named profiles change which account a command targets?
5. What must be configured on an S3 bucket so it can serve a public static website?
6. Compare a DynamoDB scan and a query — which is more efficient, and why?
7. What is the role of the partition key (and optional sort key) in a DynamoDB table?
8. Walk through the steps to insert and then retrieve an item using the Node.js AWS SDK.
9. Why must Java be installed to run DynamoDB Local?
10. Show how to navigate into a folder and list its contents in both the Windows Command Prompt and a *nix terminal.