January 2026
Intermediate to advanced
254 pages
6h 48m
English
Content preview from AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) Study Guide
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Chapter 11. AWS Database Services
A self-managed EC2-hosted database is where you handle tasks like installing the operating system, configuring the database engine, applying security patches, setting up backups, and replicating data. You will also need to set up the systems for availability, scaling, and monitoring. However, a key advantage of this type of database is that you have full control and flexibility. This can certainly be important for mission-critical databases.
AWS also offers a number of managed database services so that you don’t have to manage all these tasks yourself. Services like Amazon RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, and DocumentDB handle the heavy lifting for you.
That said, running your own database on EC2 might look cheaper if you only compare instance costs, especially when using Reserved Instances. But don’t overlook the hidden costs. Your team will spend significant effort on upkeep and troubleshooting.
For the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam, make sure you understand these trade-offs clearly. You’ll also need to know the different types of managed database options AWS provides, which we’ll cover in this chapter.
Relational Database Services—RDS and Aurora
A relational database stores data in tables made up of rows and columns. Each row represents an individual record, while each column defines what type of data goes into that record.
A major benefit of a relational database is that it can connect different tables together. This is done using ...
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