navigation

FCJ Midterm Study Guide

Overview

This comprehensive study guide covers essential AWS services and architectural patterns for the FCJ (First Cloud Journey) Midterm Exam, focusing on the AWS Well-Architected Framework’s four pillars:

  • ✅ Secure - IAM, KMS, Security Groups, GuardDuty, WAF, Shield
  • 🔄 Resilient - Multi-AZ, Multi-Region, Disaster Recovery, Auto Scaling
  • ⚡ High-Performing - Compute, Storage, Caching, CDN, Network Optimization
  • 💰 Cost-Optimized - Cost Explorer, Savings Plans, Lifecycle Policies

FCJ Midterm Focus Areas

The midterm exam concentrates on knowledge learned and practiced during the FCJ OJT program, consisting of 4 main content groups:

1. Design Secure Architectures (20-25%)

  • IAM, MFA, SCP, Encryption (KMS, TLS/ACM)
  • Security Groups, NACLs
  • GuardDuty, Shield, WAF, Secrets Manager

2. Design Resilient Architectures (25-30%)

  • Multi-AZ, Multi-Region
  • DR Strategies, Auto Scaling
  • Route 53, Load Balancing, Backup & Restore

3. Design High-Performing Architectures (25-30%)

  • Compute scaling (EC2 Auto Scaling, Lambda, Fargate)
  • Storage (S3, EFS, EBS)
  • Caching, Network Optimization (CloudFront, Global Accelerator)

4. Design Cost-Optimized Architectures (20-25%)

  • Cost Explorer, Budgets, Savings Plans
  • Lifecycle Policies, NAT Gateway Optimization
  • Storage Tiering

Students must have a strong understanding of the AWS Well-Architected Framework and core services: EC2, S3, IAM, RDS, VPC, Lambda, CloudWatch, CloudFront.

Study Resources

This guide is based on:

Content

  1. Introduction
  2. AWS Service Fundamentals
  3. Design Secure Architectures
  4. Design Resilient Architectures
  5. Design High-Performing Architectures
  6. Design Cost-Optimized Architectures
  7. Additional Resources & Study Plan