Top 30 Most Common aws basic interview questions You Should Prepare For

Introduction

If you want to pass screening calls and technical interviews fast, you need a focused list of the Top 30 Most Common AWS Basic Interview Questions You Should Prepare For that maps concepts to concise answers and real interview examples. This guide collects the high-impact AWS basic interview questions hiring managers ask, explains how to answer them, and links to authoritative sources so you can practice with purpose.

Prepare to use these questions as a study checklist, to craft crisp verbal answers, and to build one-minute explanations that demonstrate both conceptual knowledge and practical judgment. Takeaway: focused practice on these aws basic interview questions turns generic recall into interview-ready explanations.

How to use these aws basic interview questions in a live interview

Answer: Use short definitions, follow-up examples, and a one-line impact statement for each question.

Explain each concept in 20–45 seconds, give a one-sentence example of when you used or would apply it, and finish with why it matters to business outcomes (cost, availability, security). Practice answers aloud and time them—this reduces rambling and demonstrates clarity. Takeaway: structured, timed responses make these aws basic interview questions interview-ready.

What core topics these aws basic interview questions cover and why they matter

Answer: They focus on compute, storage, networking, security, monitoring, and architecture decisions.

These core domains appear repeatedly in interviews because they map directly to day-to-day cloud responsibilities. Expect questions about EC2, S3, IAM, VPC, Lambda, and design trade-offs. Use reputable question banks and explain answers with a short example or mini-design. For deeper scenarios and migration patterns, reference specialist resources for architecture guidance. See curated collections from Razorops and scenario-focused guidance at CloudZero. Takeaway: mastering core domains turns basic questions into opportunities to show judgement.

Technical Fundamentals

Q: What is AWS?
A: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud platform offering on-demand compute, storage, database, networking, and managed services.

Q: What is Amazon EC2 and how does it work?
A: EC2 provides scalable virtual servers (instances) with AMIs, instance types, key pairs, and EBS for persistent storage.

Q: What is Amazon S3 and common use cases?
A: S3 is object storage for static assets, backups, data lakes, and hosting static websites with lifecycle policies and versioning.

Q: What is AWS Lambda?
A: Lambda runs event-driven serverless functions without provisioning servers, charging per execution time and memory.

Q: What is Amazon RDS and when to use it?
A: RDS is a managed relational database service (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Aurora) for operational databases with backups and read replicas.

Q: Explain the difference between regions, availability zones, and edge locations.
A: Regions are geographic areas, AZs are isolated data centers in a region, edge locations are CDN caches for low-latency delivery.

Q: What is IAM in AWS and why is it critical?
A: IAM controls authentication and authorization—users, groups, roles, and policies—central to least-privilege security.

Q: What is the Shared Responsibility Model?
A: AWS secures the cloud infrastructure; customers secure data, applications, OS/configurations, and access controls.

Storage, Databases, and Data Tools

Q: Difference between EBS and instance store?
A: EBS is persistent block storage across reboots; instance store is ephemeral and tied to the lifecycle of the instance.

Q: When to use S3 vs EFS vs EBS?
A: S3 for object storage, EFS for shared POSIX file systems, EBS for single-instance block storage.

Q: What is Glacier (S3 Glacier) used for?
A: Low-cost long-term archival with retrieval windows and optional Vault Lock for compliance.

Q: What is DynamoDB and when choose it over RDS?
A: DynamoDB is a serverless key-value/NoSQL store for high-scale, low-latency workloads; choose it for flexible schemas and auto-scaling.

Q: How do read replicas and Multi-AZ differ for RDS?
A: Read replicas scale read traffic across regions/AZs; Multi-AZ provides synchronous failover for high availability.

Networking and Security

Q: What is a VPC and its basic components?
A: A VPC is a virtual network containing subnets, route tables, internet/NAT gateways, security groups, and network ACLs.

Q: Difference between Security Groups and Network ACLs?
A: Security Groups are stateful instance-level firewalls; Network ACLs are stateless, subnet-level filters.

Q: What is a NAT gateway vs NAT instance?
A: NAT gateway is a managed, highly-available service; NAT instance is an EC2-based NAT needing management and scaling.

Q: How does Route 53 support DNS and global routing?
A: Route 53 provides DNS, health checks, weighted/latency failover routing, and domain registration.

Q: What is AWS Organizations and Service Control Policies?
A: Organizations centralize accounts with consolidated billing; SCPs apply permission boundaries across member accounts.

Messaging, Integration, and Application Services

Q: Difference between SQS and SNS?
A: SQS is a queue for message durability and decoupling; SNS is pub/sub for broadcast-style notifications.

Q: What is API Gateway and common use cases?
A: API Gateway manages REST/WebSocket APIs, routing, authorizers, throttling, and integration with Lambda or backend services.

Q: When to use EventBridge vs SNS?
A: Use EventBridge for event bus-driven, schema-based routing across AWS services and SaaS; use SNS for simple pub/sub notifications.

Q: What is AWS Step Functions used for?
A: Orchestrating serverless workflows with state machines and retry/error handling for complex processes.

Q: What is Elastic Beanstalk?
A: A PaaS to deploy and scale web apps with managed provisioning of EC2, load balancers, and scaling, ideal for quick deployments.

Monitoring, Logging, and Cost Control

Q: What is CloudWatch and what does it monitor?
A: CloudWatch collects metrics, logs, and alarms for AWS resources and applications with dashboards and insights.

Q: What is CloudTrail and why enable it?
A: CloudTrail records account API activity and resource changes for auditing and forensic analysis.

Q: How to monitor costs and control spending in AWS?
A: Use Billing Console, Cost Explorer, budgets, and tagging to track costs; use Rightsizing and Savings Plans for optimization.

Q: What is an Elastic Load Balancer and types available?
A: ELB distributes traffic; Classic (legacy), Application (Layer 7), Network (Layer 4), and Gateway load balancers exist for different use cases.

Q: What is Auto Scaling and its advantages?
A: Auto Scaling adjusts capacity automatically to maintain performance and reduce cost, using policies and predictive scaling.

DevOps, CI/CD, and Data Transfer

Q: What are common ways to migrate large datasets to AWS?
A: Use AWS DataSync, S3 Transfer Acceleration, Snowball appliances, or direct AWS Direct Connect for large transfers.

Q: What is CloudFormation and how does it help?
A: CloudFormation provisions resources as code with templates to enable repeatable, version-controlled deployments.

Q: What is an AMI and why create custom AMIs?
A: AMI is an image for launching EC2 instances; custom AMIs speed provisioning with preinstalled software and configurations.

Q: How to build a basic CI/CD pipeline on AWS?
A: Use CodeCommit/CodeBuild/CodeDeploy or integrate third-party CI with S3, CodePipeline, and Lambda for automated builds and deployments.

How Verve AI Interview Copilot Can Help You With This

Answer: Verve AI Interview Copilot provides real-time feedback, structured outlines, and on-the-fly phrasing help so you answer aws basic interview questions clearly and concisely.

This tool simulates common screening prompts, times your replies, and suggests stronger phrasing with follow-up question cues; it helps you convert textbook answers into interview-ready narratives and reduces stress during interviews. By practicing with guided prompts and receiving adaptive feedback, you’ll sharpen explanations for topics like EC2, VPC, IAM, and serverless architectures. Try tailored mock rounds to build crisp, measurable improvement. Use Verve AI Interview Copilot to rehearse answers and follow-ups. See how Verve AI Interview Copilot helps refine timing and structure in real time.

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What Are the Most Common Questions About This Topic

Q: Can Verve AI help with behavioral interviews?
A: Yes. It applies STAR and CAR frameworks to guide real-time answers.

Q: How long should my AWS answer be in screening calls?
A: Aim for 30–90 seconds with a one-line summary and a brief example.

Q: Which AWS cert helps interview readiness fastest?
A: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner gives broad coverage of core concepts.

Q: Should I include cost and security in every architecture answer?
A: Yes—mention trade-offs for availability, cost, and security in short bullets.

Q: How many practice answers should I record?
A: Record 10–15 core answers and iterate based on feedback and timing.

Conclusion

Solid preparation with the Top 30 Most Common AWS Basic Interview Questions You Should Prepare For gives you structure, clarity, and confidence to move past initial screens and technical interviews. Focus on short, example-driven answers that show trade-offs for cost, availability, and security. Keep practicing timed responses and refine using realistic scenarios.

Try Verve AI Interview Copilot to feel confident and prepared for every interview.

Further reading and practice resources: curated question lists and scenario guides are available from Razorops, a timed fundamentals walkthrough on YouTube, scenario and architecture Q&As at CloudZero, and expanded question banks at Curotec, InterviewBit, SoftwareTestingHelp, NetComLearning, and Turing.