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AWS Abstraction

1. Explain the levels of abstraction in AWS to someone without a technical background.

   • There are various aspects to how computers work known as levels of abstraction. In essence, these deal with how close or far the element of computer science you are dealing with are from the "bare metal" computer hardware. Each level of abstraction has its own requirements for resources and maintenance. The various cloud services offered by AWS allow consumers to choose which requirements they want to be responsible for themselves, or which ones they want AWS to handle, based on the customer's needs. What the customer desires to do will, in part, determine what level is needed, while cost vs. convenience will largely drive the remaining part of the decision.

2. What are the control plane and data plane responsible for in container abstraction?

   • The control plane "is responsible for exposing the API (application programming interface) and interfaces to define, deploy, and lifecycle containers."
   • The data plane provides the infrastructure for the control plane to be able to operate, such as processing power, storage and networking.

3. Where does AWS Lambda fall in the layers of abstraction and what makes it so special?

   • AWS Lambda is at the highest level of abstraction. It basically permits the user to run the single function they are trying to operate with no concern for hardware, operating systems, programs. etc. Lambda figures out which other operating systems and programs are needed to support the user's function and applies them for the user.

Sources: AWS