4.4 - Application integration services (SQS, SNS)

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner covers application integration services that decouple components so failures stay isolated and systems scale. Amazon SQS is a fully managed message queue used to decouple application components: a producer puts messages in the queue and a consumer processes them at its own pace. Amazon SNS uses a publish/subscribe model to push messages to many subscribers at once, such as email, SMS or queues. Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus that connects application events to targets using rules, integrating AWS and SaaS sources. AWS Step Functions coordinates multiple AWS services into a visual workflow of steps with built-in error handling. Expect scenario questions that describe buffering work between components, fanning a message out to many subscribers, routing events by rules, or orchestrating a multi-step workflow, and ask which integration service - SQS, SNS, EventBridge or Step Functions - fits.

Memory hook
Decouple with a message queue = SQS. Publish/subscribe fan-out to many = SNS. Serverless event bus with rules = EventBridge. Coordinate services into a visual workflow = Step Functions.

Practice questions

1. Which service is a fully managed message queue used to decouple application components?

  • Amazon SageMaker
  • Amazon SQS (correct answer)
  • Amazon Rekognition
  • Amazon Polly

Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service) is a managed message queue. Producers send messages and consumers pull them, decoupling components so they scale and fail independently.

2. Which service uses a publish/subscribe model to push messages to many subscribers at once?

  • Amazon SNS (correct answer)
  • Amazon Athena
  • Amazon Textract
  • Amazon Kendra

Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) is a pub/sub service: publishers send to a topic and SNS pushes the message to all subscribers (Lambda, SQS, email, SMS) at once.

3. Which serverless event bus connects application events to targets using rules, including SaaS sources?

  • Amazon Polly
  • Amazon Transcribe
  • Amazon EventBridge (correct answer)
  • Amazon Comprehend

Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus that routes events from AWS services, custom apps, and SaaS partners to targets using rules, enabling event-driven, loosely coupled architectures.

4. Which service coordinates multiple AWS services into a visual workflow of steps?

  • Amazon Lex
  • Amazon SQS
  • Amazon Translate
  • AWS Step Functions (correct answer)

AWS Step Functions orchestrates workflows as state machines, coordinating Lambda functions and other services with built-in retries, branching, and visual monitoring of each step.

5. A data-science team wants a managed platform to build, train and host custom ML models. Which service fits?

  • Amazon Comprehend
  • Amazon SageMaker (correct answer)
  • Amazon Kendra
  • Amazon Athena

SageMaker is the managed ML platform for building, training and deploying custom models. Polly, Kendra and Athena serve other purposes (speech, search, queries).

6. Which service analyzes images and video to detect objects, faces and text?

  • Amazon Rekognition (correct answer)
  • Amazon Transcribe Medical
  • Amazon Comprehend
  • Amazon Translate

Rekognition is the computer vision service for images and video (objects, faces, unsafe content, text in images). Transcribe, Comprehend and Translate handle audio/text.

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