What Is the AWS CCP (CLF-C02)? Glossary & Key Terms

AWS Well-Architected Framework
A set of guidelines organized into six pillars (Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, Sustainability) that helps customers design and evaluate cloud architectures against best practices.
Shared Responsibility Model
The division of security obligations between AWS (security 'of' the cloud) and the customer (security 'in' the cloud), clarifying which party manages which aspects of a given service.
Availability Zone (AZ)
One or more discrete, physically separate data centers within an AWS Region, each with independent power and networking, used to build fault-tolerant applications.
Region
A separate geographic area containing multiple Availability Zones, allowing customers to deploy resources close to their users and meet data residency requirements.
Edge Location
A site in the AWS global network used to cache and deliver content closer to end users, primarily through Amazon CloudFront.
Elasticity
The capability of a cloud environment to automatically provision and de-provision resources to match real-time demand.
Scalability
The capacity of a system to grow to handle increased load, either by scaling vertically (bigger resources) or horizontally (more resources).
CapEx (Capital Expenditure)
Upfront investment in physical infrastructure or long-term assets, typical of traditional on-premises IT spending.
OpEx (Operating Expenditure)
Ongoing, consumption-based spending for resources as they are used, which is the typical cloud pricing model.
AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF)
A guidance framework that helps organizations plan and execute their journey to the cloud by aligning business and technical strategies across multiple organizational perspectives.
Amazon EC2
Elastic Compute Cloud, the AWS service providing resizable virtual compute instances in the cloud.
Amazon S3
Simple Storage Service, a highly durable and scalable object storage service organized around buckets and objects.
Amazon EBS
Elastic Block Store, a persistent block-level storage volume service designed for use with EC2 instances.
Amazon RDS
Relational Database Service, a managed service that provisions, patches, and scales relational databases for customers.
Amazon DynamoDB
A fully managed, serverless NoSQL database service offering fast and predictable performance at any scale.
AWS Lambda
A serverless compute service that executes code in response to triggers without requiring server management, billed by requests and execution time.
Amazon VPC
Virtual Private Cloud, a customer-defined logically isolated virtual network within AWS where resources can be launched and network settings controlled.
AWS IAM
Identity and Access Management, the service used to create and manage users, groups, roles, and permissions policies that control access to AWS resources.
Principle of Least Privilege
A security best practice of granting only the permissions required to perform a task, minimizing potential attack surface and risk.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
A security control requiring a second, independent proof of identity beyond a password to authenticate a user.
Root User
The identity automatically created when an AWS account is set up, having unrestricted access to all resources and billing information for that account.
AWS Organizations
A service that enables centralized management and governance of multiple AWS accounts, including consolidated billing and policy enforcement.
Service Control Policy (SCP)
A policy type in AWS Organizations that defines the maximum permissions allowed for accounts within an organizational unit.
AWS CloudTrail
A service that logs and tracks API calls and account activity across AWS services for auditing and governance purposes.