Similar-Sounding Services
Services grouped only because their names sound alike — the trap that makes you pick the wrong one on an exam. Reaches across every domain; the sole criteria is a confusable name.
| Name cluster | Service | What it is / how it differs |
|---|---|---|
| S_S trio | Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) | Pub/sub — pushes one message to many subscribers. |
| Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) | Queue — one consumer pulls each message. | |
| Amazon SES | Sends bulk and transactional email. | |
| Cloud* | Amazon CloudWatch | Metrics, logs, alarms — performance (“is it working?”). |
| AWS CloudTrail | Records who called which API — audit (“who did it?”). | |
| AWS CloudFormation | Infrastructure as code. | |
| Amazon CloudFront | CDN — caches content at edge locations. | |
| AWS CloudHSM (Hardware Security Module) | Dedicated hardware for encryption keys. | |
| Cloud* (dev) | AWS Cloud9 | Full browser IDE. |
| AWS CloudShell | Pre-authenticated browser terminal. | |
| Elastic* | AWS Elastic Beanstalk | PaaS — deploy code, AWS runs the infra. |
| EBS | Block disk for one EC2 instance. | |
| EFS | Shared file system for many instances. | |
| AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery | Replicates servers for fast failover. | |
| Elastic Load Balancing | Spreads traffic across targets. | |
| E_S / E_R (containers) | ECS | Run containers — AWS orchestrator. |
| EKS | Run containers on Kubernetes. | |
| ECR | Store container images. | |
| * Manager | AWS Systems Manager | Operate fleets — patch, run commands, Parameter Store. |
| AWS Secrets Manager | Store and auto-rotate secrets. | |
| AWS License Manager | Track software license usage. | |
| AWS Firewall Manager | Apply firewall rules across accounts. | |
| Certificate Manager | Issue and renew TLS certificates. | |
| App* | AWS Amplify | Build and host full-stack web/mobile apps. |
| AWS AppSync | Managed GraphQL API. | |
| AWS AppConfig | Feature flags and app configuration. | |
| AppStream 2.0 | Streams a desktop app to a browser. | |
| ”Connect” | Amazon Connect | Cloud contact center (call/chat). |
| AWS Direct Connect | Dedicated private network link to AWS. | |
| ”* Firewall” / Shield | AWS WAF | Filters HTTP (L7) attacks. |
| AWS Shield | DDoS protection (L3/4). | |
| AWS Network Firewall | Stateful firewall for all VPC traffic. | |
| AWS Firewall Manager | Central policy manager for the above. | |
| Streaming | Amazon Kinesis Data Streams | Real-time stream you consume and can replay. |
| Amazon Data Firehose | Managed delivery of a stream to S3/Redshift. | |
| Amazon MSK | Managed Apache Kafka. | |
| Migration | AWS DMS | Migrate database data. |
| AWS SCT | Convert schema between engines. | |
| AWS MGN | Lift-and-shift whole servers to EC2. | |
| Application Discovery Service | Inventory on-premises servers. | |
| Migration Hub | Track migration progress. | |
| Cost* | AWS Cost Explorer | Visualize and analyze past spend. |
| AWS Cost and Usage Report | Raw, line-item billing data. | |
| AWS Budgets | Alert before you exceed a threshold. | |
| Zones | Availability Zones | Isolated data centers within a Region. |
| AWS Local Zones | Region capability in a far metro area. | |
| Wavelength Zones | Compute inside a 5G carrier network. |