AWS Certified Developer – Associate — Question 114

A developer is deploying an application in the AWS Cloud by using AWS CloudFormation. The application will connect to an existing Amazon RDS database. The hostname of the RDS database is stored in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store as a plaintext value. The developer needs to incorporate the database hostname into the CloudFormation template to initialize the application when the stack is created.

How should the developer reference the parameter that contains the database hostname?

Answer options

• A. Use the ssm dynamic reference.
• B. Use the Ref intrinsic function.
• C. Use the Fn::ImportValue intrinsic function.
• D. Use the ssm-secure dynamic reference.

Correct answer: A

Explanation

The correct answer is A because the ssm dynamic reference allows the developer to retrieve the plaintext value of the parameter stored in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store directly in the CloudFormation template. Option B, Ref, is used for referencing resources but not for fetching parameter store values. Option C, Fn::ImportValue, is meant for importing values from other stacks, which is not applicable here. Option D, ssm-secure, is used for secure parameters and does not apply since the hostname is stored as plaintext.