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AWS Services Reference

Every AWS service explained in plain English — 119+ services organized by category. Use this as a quick reference while studying for your AWS certification exam.

Compute

(11)

Run virtual servers, containers, and serverless functions

Amazon EC2

EC2

Resizable virtual servers (instances) in the cloud, supporting hundreds of instance types optimized for different compute, memory, storage, and GPU workloads.

SAADVASOA

AWS Lambda

Serverless compute that runs your code in response to events without provisioning or managing servers — you pay only for the compute time you consume.

DVASAA

Amazon ECS

ECS

Fully managed container orchestration service that runs Docker containers on a cluster of EC2 instances or serverless Fargate infrastructure.

SAADOP

Amazon EKS

EKS

Managed Kubernetes service that makes it easy to run Kubernetes on AWS without installing, operating, and maintaining your own control plane.

SAADOP

AWS Fargate

Serverless compute engine for containers that removes the need to provision and manage EC2 instances — works with both ECS and EKS.

SAA

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Platform-as-a-service that automatically handles deployment, capacity provisioning, load balancing, and health monitoring for web applications.

DVASOA

Amazon Lightsail

Simplified cloud platform designed for developers who need virtual private servers, databases, and networking at predictable low monthly prices.

AWS Batch

Fully managed batch processing service that dynamically provisions compute resources to run hundreds of thousands of batch computing jobs.

SAA

AWS App Runner

Fully managed service that builds, deploys, and scales containerized web applications and APIs automatically from source code or container images.

AWS Outposts

Extends AWS infrastructure and services to your on-premises data center, enabling a consistent hybrid experience with the same APIs, tools, and hardware.

SAASAP

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

Automatically adjusts the number of EC2 instances in a group based on demand, ensuring you have the right capacity at the right time.

SAASOA

Storage

(9)

Object, block, file, and archival storage solutions

Amazon S3

S3

Infinitely scalable object storage with 99.999999999% durability, supporting static websites, data lakes, backups, and media storage through multiple storage classes.

SAADVADEA

Amazon EBS

EBS

High-performance block storage volumes that attach to a single EC2 instance, available in SSD and HDD types optimized for different I/O workloads.

SAA

Amazon EFS

EFS

Serverless, elastic file system that can be mounted by multiple EC2 instances simultaneously, automatically scaling storage capacity up and down.

SAA

Amazon FSx

Fully managed file storage built on popular file systems — Windows File Server, Lustre (HPC), NetApp ONTAP, and OpenZFS — for specialized workloads.

SAASAP

Amazon S3 Glacier

Low-cost archival storage with retrieval options from milliseconds (Instant Retrieval) to hours (Flexible Retrieval, Deep Archive) for long-term data retention.

SAA

AWS Storage Gateway

Hybrid cloud storage service that connects on-premises environments to cloud storage via File Gateway, Volume Gateway, or Tape Gateway interfaces.

SAASAP

AWS Snow Family

Physical devices (Snowcone, Snowball, Snowmobile) for migrating large volumes of data to AWS when network transfer is impractical due to bandwidth or time constraints.

SAA

AWS Backup

Centralized, policy-based backup service that automates and manages backups across AWS services including EC2, EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, and FSx.

SAASCS

AWS DataSync

Online data transfer service that moves data between on-premises storage systems, edge locations, and AWS storage services at up to 10x faster than open-source tools.

SAA

Databases

(11)

Relational, NoSQL, in-memory, time-series, and specialized databases

Amazon RDS

RDS

Managed relational database service supporting MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and SQL Server with automated backups, Multi-AZ failover, and read replicas.

SAADVA

Amazon Aurora

MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database built for the cloud with up to 5x the throughput of standard MySQL and 3x PostgreSQL, plus Aurora Serverless.

SAASAP

Amazon DynamoDB

Fully managed NoSQL database delivering single-digit millisecond performance at any scale, with on-demand or provisioned capacity and built-in replication.

SAADVADEA

Amazon ElastiCache

In-memory caching service compatible with Redis and Memcached that improves application performance by caching frequently accessed data at sub-millisecond latency.

SAADVA

Amazon Redshift

Cloud data warehouse optimized for analytic workloads that queries petabytes of structured and semi-structured data using standard SQL, with Redshift Serverless available.

SAADEA

Amazon Neptune

Fully managed graph database service that supports Property Graph (Apache TinkerPop Gremlin) and RDF (SPARQL) query languages for highly connected datasets.

SAA

Amazon DocumentDB

MongoDB-compatible managed document database service that emulates the MongoDB API and is designed for JSON document workloads at scale.

SAA

Amazon MemoryDB for Redis

Redis-compatible, durable, in-memory database that delivers ultra-fast performance with Multi-AZ durability, suitable as a primary database rather than just a cache.

Amazon Keyspaces

Scalable, highly available Apache Cassandra-compatible managed database service that requires no Cassandra cluster management.

Amazon Timestream

Fast, scalable, serverless time-series database designed for IoT and operational applications that ingest and query trillions of events per day.

Amazon QLDB

QLDB

Fully managed ledger database that provides a transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable transaction log for applications requiring an authoritative data history.

Networking & Content Delivery

(11)

Virtual networks, DNS, CDN, load balancing, and connectivity

Amazon VPC

VPC

Logically isolated virtual network within AWS where you define your own IP address ranges, subnets, route tables, security groups, and network gateways.

SAASCSANS

Amazon CloudFront

Global content delivery network (CDN) that accelerates delivery of websites, APIs, videos, and other content by caching it at 500+ edge locations worldwide.

SAADVA

Amazon Route 53

Highly available DNS web service offering domain registration, DNS routing (with 7 routing policies), and health checking for internet-facing and internal resources.

SAAANS

Elastic Load Balancing

ELB

Automatically distributes incoming traffic across multiple targets with three types: Application (HTTP/HTTPS), Network (TCP/UDP), and Gateway (third-party appliances).

SAA

Amazon API Gateway

Fully managed service for creating, publishing, securing, and monitoring REST, HTTP, and WebSocket APIs at any scale with authentication, throttling, and caching.

DVASAA

AWS Direct Connect

Dedicated private network connection from your data center to AWS, bypassing the public internet to provide consistent bandwidth and reduced latency.

SAAANSSAP

AWS Transit Gateway

Network transit hub that connects VPCs and on-premises networks through a central gateway, replacing complex VPC peering meshes with a hub-and-spoke model.

SAAANSSAP

AWS Global Accelerator

Networking service that improves global application performance by routing traffic through the AWS global network to the optimal endpoint, providing static IP addresses.

SAA

AWS PrivateLink

Provides private connectivity between VPCs and AWS services without exposing traffic to the public internet, using interface VPC endpoints.

SAASCS

AWS VPN

Encrypted tunnels connecting your on-premises networks to AWS over the public internet via Site-to-Site VPN or connecting individual devices via Client VPN.

SAAANS

AWS Network Firewall

Managed firewall service providing stateful and stateless packet filtering, intrusion prevention, and web filtering for VPC traffic at scale.

SCSANS

Security, Identity & Compliance

(15)

Identity management, threat detection, data protection, and compliance

AWS IAM

IAM

Identity and Access Management for controlling who can authenticate and what actions they can perform on AWS resources, using users, groups, roles, and policies.

SAASCSDVA

AWS Organizations

Account management service for consolidating multiple AWS accounts into an organization with centralized billing, policy-based controls via SCPs, and account vending.

SAPSCS

Amazon Cognito

User identity service providing authentication, authorization, and user management for web and mobile apps via User Pools (auth) and Identity Pools (federated access).

DVASAA

Amazon GuardDuty

Continuous threat detection service that analyzes CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS logs using machine learning to identify malicious activity and unauthorized behavior.

SCSSAA

Amazon Inspector

Automated vulnerability management service that continuously scans EC2 instances and container images for software vulnerabilities and unintended network exposure.

SCS

Amazon Macie

Machine learning-powered security service that automatically discovers, classifies, and protects sensitive data (PII, credentials, financial data) stored in Amazon S3.

SCSDEA

AWS Security Hub

Centralized security management service that aggregates, prioritizes, and provides actionable findings from GuardDuty, Inspector, Macie, and third-party tools.

SCS

AWS WAF

WAF

Web application firewall that protects web applications from common exploits like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and bot traffic using customizable rules.

SCSSAA

AWS Shield

DDoS protection service with Shield Standard (automatic, free) for layer 3/4 attacks and Shield Advanced ($3,000/month) for sophisticated attack mitigation and 24/7 support.

SCSSAA

AWS KMS

KMS

Key Management Service for creating and controlling cryptographic keys used to encrypt data, integrated with most AWS services and supporting customer-managed key policies.

SCSSAADVA

AWS Secrets Manager

Manages, retrieves, and automatically rotates secrets like database passwords and API keys, with native integration for RDS, Redshift, and DocumentDB.

DVASCS

AWS Certificate Manager

ACM

Provisions and manages SSL/TLS certificates for use with CloudFront, ALB, and API Gateway, including automatic renewal for public certificates.

SCSSAA

Amazon Detective

Security analytics service that automatically collects log data to create visualizations that help you analyze, investigate, and identify the root cause of security findings.

SCS

AWS CloudHSM

HSM

Dedicated hardware security module in AWS that lets you manage your own cryptographic keys with FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validated hardware for compliance requirements.

SCS

AWS IAM Identity Center

Centralized SSO and access management for AWS accounts and business applications, replacing AWS SSO with support for external identity providers like Okta and Azure AD.

SCSSAP

AI & Machine Learning

(12)

Foundation models, ML platforms, and AI-powered services

Amazon Bedrock

Fully managed service providing access to leading foundation models (Anthropic Claude, Meta Llama, Amazon Titan, Stability AI) via API, with agents, knowledge bases, and guardrails.

AIFAIP

Amazon SageMaker

End-to-end ML platform for building, training, and deploying machine learning models at scale, including SageMaker Studio, Autopilot, Clarify, and JumpStart for pre-trained models.

MLAAIF

Amazon Rekognition

Image and video analysis service that identifies objects, people, text, scenes, and activities, as well as detects inappropriate content using deep learning.

AIFMLA

Amazon Comprehend

Natural language processing service that uses ML to find insights and relationships in text — sentiment, entities, key phrases, language, and custom classification.

AIF

Amazon Transcribe

Automatic speech recognition service that converts audio and video speech to text with support for multiple languages, speaker diarization, and custom vocabulary.

AIF

Amazon Polly

Text-to-speech service using deep learning to synthesize natural-sounding speech in dozens of languages and voices, with SSML support for fine-tuned speech control.

AIF

Amazon Translate

Neural machine translation service delivering fast, high-quality, and customizable language translation between 75+ language pairs.

AIF

Amazon Textract

Automatically extracts text, handwriting, and structured data (tables, forms) from scanned documents using ML, going beyond simple OCR.

AIF

Amazon Kendra

Intelligent enterprise search service powered by ML that indexes content from multiple sources and answers natural language questions with high accuracy.

AIF

Amazon Personalize

ML service enabling developers to build real-time personalization and recommendation systems using the same technology used by Amazon.com.

AIF

Amazon Forecast

Fully managed time-series forecasting service using ML to deliver accurate predictions for business metrics like retail demand, resource requirements, and financial planning.

Amazon Lex

Conversational AI service for building voice and text chatbots using the same deep learning technologies that power Amazon Alexa.

AIF

Analytics

(9)

Data lakes, streaming, ETL, and business intelligence

Amazon Athena

Serverless interactive query service that analyzes data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL — pay per query, no infrastructure to manage.

DEASAA

Amazon EMR

EMR

Managed big data platform for running Apache Spark, Hive, HBase, Flink, and other open-source frameworks to process vast amounts of data quickly and cost-effectively.

DEA

Amazon Kinesis

Platform for real-time data streaming with four services: Data Streams (custom processing), Firehose (load to destinations), Analytics (SQL on streams), and Video Streams.

DEASAA

AWS Glue

Serverless data integration service that discovers, prepares, and combines data for analytics using a managed ETL engine, Data Catalog, and visual ETL builder.

DEASAA

AWS Lake Formation

Service that simplifies building, securing, and managing data lakes by automating complex data ingestion, cataloging, transformation, and fine-grained access control.

DEA

Amazon QuickSight

Cloud-native business intelligence service for creating interactive dashboards and visualizations from data in S3, Redshift, RDS, Athena, and other sources.

DEA

Amazon OpenSearch Service

Managed service for deploying, operating, and scaling OpenSearch and Elasticsearch clusters for log analytics, full-text search, and application monitoring.

SAASCS

AWS Glue DataBrew

Visual data preparation tool that allows analysts and data scientists to clean and normalize data using 250+ pre-built transformations without writing code.

DEA

Amazon MSK

MSK

Fully managed Apache Kafka service that makes it easy to ingest and process streaming data in real time without managing Kafka infrastructure.

DEA

Application Integration

(6)

Messaging, event-driven architecture, and workflow orchestration

Developer Tools & DevOps

(10)

CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and developer productivity

AWS CodePipeline

Fully managed continuous delivery service that automates build, test, and deploy phases every time code is changed based on a release model you define.

DVADOP

AWS CodeBuild

Fully managed continuous integration service that compiles source code, runs tests, and produces deployable software packages without managing build servers.

DVADOP

AWS CodeDeploy

Automated deployment service that deploys applications to EC2, Lambda, ECS, or on-premises servers with blue/green, canary, and linear deployment strategies.

DVADOP

AWS CodeCommit

Fully managed source control service hosting secure, private Git repositories — being retired in favor of third-party Git solutions per AWS announcement.

DVA

AWS CloudFormation

Infrastructure as code service that provisions and manages AWS resources by treating infrastructure as a JSON or YAML template — the foundation of repeatable deployments.

DVASAADOP

AWS CDK

CDK

Cloud Development Kit for defining AWS infrastructure using familiar programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Java, Go) that synthesize into CloudFormation templates.

DVA

AWS SAM

SAM

Serverless Application Model — open-source framework for building serverless applications that extends CloudFormation with simplified syntax for Lambda, API Gateway, and DynamoDB.

DVA

AWS X-Ray

Distributed tracing service that helps analyze and debug production microservices applications by collecting data about requests, generating service maps, and identifying bottlenecks.

DVA

AWS Systems Manager

Operations management service providing a unified interface to view operational data and automate tasks — includes Session Manager, Parameter Store, Patch Manager, and Run Command.

SOADOPSCS

AWS CodeArtifact

Fully managed artifact repository service that stores, publishes, and shares software packages (npm, pip, Maven, NuGet) for use in CI/CD pipelines.

DVA

Management & Monitoring

(9)

Observability, logging, compliance, and cost management

Amazon CloudWatch

Observability service for monitoring AWS resources and applications — collects metrics, logs, and events to generate alarms, dashboards, and automated responses.

SOADVADOP

AWS CloudTrail

Audit log service that records all API calls made to your AWS account — who did what, when, and from where — for governance, compliance, and operational troubleshooting.

SCSSAA

AWS Config

Configuration compliance service that continuously records AWS resource configurations and evaluates them against desired state rules for governance and audit.

SCSSOA

AWS Trusted Advisor

Real-time guidance tool that inspects your AWS environment and makes recommendations for cost optimization, security, fault tolerance, performance, and service limits.

CLFSOA

AWS Control Tower

Service for setting up and governing a secure, compliant multi-account AWS environment (a "landing zone") using best practices and guardrails for new accounts.

SAPSCS

AWS Cost Explorer

Visualization tool for analyzing and understanding your AWS spending over time — identifies cost trends, anomalies, and savings opportunities across services.

CLFSOA

AWS Budgets

Sets custom cost and usage budgets that alert you when your spend or usage exceeds — or is forecasted to exceed — defined thresholds.

CLF

AWS Compute Optimizer

Recommends optimal AWS compute resources (EC2 instances, Lambda functions, ECS tasks) based on your actual utilization to reduce costs and improve performance.

SOASAP

AWS Health Dashboard

Provides personalized information about AWS service health events that may affect your account, with proactive notifications and guidance for remediation.

SOA

Migration & Transfer

(5)

Tools for migrating applications, databases, and data to AWS

Containers

(3)

Container registries, orchestration, and service mesh

IoT

(4)

Connect, manage, and process data from IoT devices

Frontend & Mobile

(4)

Tools for building and hosting web and mobile applications

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