Mastering AWS: A Complete Guide to Cloud Computing in 2026

Discover AWS EC2, a scalable cloud compute service that lets you launch and manage virtual instances with configurable OS, security and networking (IAM, VPC), storage (EBS), and pay-as-you-go pricing.

Explore Amazon EC2 instance types, especially general purpose ones that balance compute, memory, and networking, including T-series burstables and M-series, with guidance to select in the AWS console.

Explore compute-optimized aws instances ideal for compute-intensive tasks like high-performance web servers, batch processing, machine learning inference, gaming servers, and 3d rendering with c series.

Explore memory optimized instances designed for memory intensive applications, including in-memory databases like Reddis or memcached, real-time analytics, large caches, and high-performance databases.

Explore storage-optimized AWS instances for storage-intensive tasks with low latency and high IOPs, ideal for databases, warehousing, and NoSQL platforms like Kassandra or MongoDB across I, D, and H series.

Explore accelerated optimized AWS instances with GPUs and FPGAs for machine learning, HPC, and graphics rendering, including P, G, and F series.

Explore HPC high performance computing instances on AWS for large-scale simulations and deep learning workloads. Review Mac instances optimized for Apple workloads, such as Mac1.metal and Mac2.metal for Mac development.

Explore how AWS EC2 pricing models optimize cloud budgets by choosing among on demand, spot instances, reserved instances, dedicated spots, free tier models, and save models.

Choose on demand instances for short-term workloads with per hour or per second billing and no upfront commitments; launch an EC2 for a live event and pay only for usage.

Explore AWS spot instances and spot fleet, offering up to 90% discounts on unused EC2 capacity, with interruptions, ideal for fault tolerant, stateless or batch workloads with flexible start times.

Explore reserved instances for one- or three-year terms to secure EC2 capacity, gain up to 72% savings, with regional arrays across availability zones and upfront payment options.

Explore dedicated hosts: a physical EC2 server dedicated to your use for compliant licensing and data isolation, offering full hardware control and cost-saving reservation options.

Explore additional pricing models for compute, including saving plans with up to 72% savings on EC2, Fargate, and Lambda. Secure capacity with reservations in a specific availability zone.

Create an AWS account, log in to the AWS Management Console, and set up an EC2 Linux instance (Amazon Linux or Ubuntu) with Mobaxterm or Putty to connect.

Launch an Amazon Linux EC2 instance in the AWS console using the Amazon Linux 2023 image, choose a t2.medium, RSA key pair, default VPC, and SSH with 8 GB GP3.

Connect to an EC2 instance using Mobaxterm by configuring the public IP, ec2-user, and your private key (.pem) over SSH (port 22), then elevate to root with sudo -i.

Learn to connect an Amazon EC2 instance using Putty, convert a .pem private key to .ppk with Puttygen, and configure SSH access on port 22 with the EC2 user.

Launch an ubuntu ec2 instance in the aws management console, choosing the latest ubuntu ami and a t2.medium instance, create a new key pair, and enable ssh access.

Master the use of key pairs for secure AWS EC2 access by understanding private keys (.pem), public keys, and the authorized_keys file to enable SSH login.

Master passwordless authentication between Linux servers by generating an ssh key pair on the Amazon Linux host, then copying the public key to Ubuntu's authorized_keys with proper permissions.

Learn to create a devops user on Amazon Linux and Ubuntu, configure passwordless ssh between servers with public and private keys, and set proper authorized_keys permissions.

Practice lab walks through creating an Ubuntu user with a home directory, setting up .ssh and authorized_keys, and logging in via ssh with a key to enable passwordless access.

Implement passwordless SSH between Amazon Linux and Ubuntu servers by generating RSA keys, copying the public key to authorized_keys, and testing DevOps user access without passwords.

Create ssh key pairs, copy the public key to the DevOps user on the Amazon Linux server, and enable passwordless login to access both Amazon Linux and Ubuntu servers.

Enable termination protection on an AWS EC2 instance to prevent accidental termination. Learn how to enable it via the management console, AWS CLI, or API, and see a practical demonstration.

Explore how termination protection prevents accidental deletion of an AWS EC2 instance and how to disable it to terminate the instance.

Launch an EC2 instance with Red Hat, configure security, install Apache or Nginx, start and enable the web server, and access it from a browser.

Set up an AWS EC2 web server by updating the system, installing Apache, creating index.html in /var/www/html with sudo, restarting Apache, and opening port 80 in the security group.

Configure the EC2 instance inbound rules to allow HTTP traffic on port 80 from anywhere. Verify access to the web server by refreshing the page.

Master the role of security groups as virtual firewalls for AWS EC2 instances, defining inbound and outbound rules by protocol, port, and IP with immediate updates and without restart.

Configure inbound and outbound rules to control traffic to EC2 instances. Understand how security groups are stateful, auto-allowing return traffic and applying rule changes immediately.

Learn how security group rules control inbound traffic using protocol, port range, source, and destination, with practical use cases for ssh (port 22) and http (port 80) on EC2.

Explore creating and configuring a security group in AWS EC2, including inbound and outbound rules, port 22 SSH access, and attaching the group to a VM.

Learn how to attach a security group to a running EC2 instance, edit inbound rules to allow SSH and HTTP ports, and verify the security group on the VM.

Configure security group inbound rules for port 22 (and 80), test ssh access to the vm, then remove and re-add the rule to verify access control.

Explore Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), a scalable, high-performance, persistent cloud-based block storage for EC2 that attaches to instances and supports file systems, databases, and backups via snapshots.

Explore Amazon Elastic Block Store and its volume types—SSD general purpose and Provisioned IOPS, HDD throughput-optimized and cold—attached to EC2 instances, with Multi-Attach on the Nitro System and 99.999% availability.

Explore the main Amazon EBS volume types, highlighting general purpose SSD GP3 and GP2, with GP3 offering cost-effective high performance and customizable IOPs for web servers and boot volumes.

Explore provisioned IOPS SSD volumes, including Io2 and Io1, for high performance databases and mission-critical apps. Io2 delivers 99.999% durability; Io1 enables multi-attach access across instances.

Explore throughput optimized HDD EBS volumes for high throughput workloads like big data processing, data warehouses, and log processing, and learn when to use cold HDD for low-cost archival backups.

Launch an EC2 instance, attach and inspect an eight GB GP3 EBS volume, then modify to GP2 and increase to ten GB online, noting root volume deletion on termination.

Launch an ec2 instance and attach gp3 root plus gp2 and io2 volumes. Terminate the instance to see root volume deletion and note manual deletion needed for extra volumes.

Create an EC2 instance, provision a 10 gb EBS gp3 volume in the same availability zone, attach, SSH, verify with fdisk, format with ZFS, mount, and create files.

Launch an Ubuntu t2.micro EC2 instance in us-east-1a with an 8 GB GP3 root and a key pair; create a 10 GB GP3 EBS in the same AZ to attach.

Create an Elastic Block Store gp3 volume in the availability zone, set 10 GB, add a tag, and review the option to create a snapshot.

Attach the newly created volume to the EC2 instance and assign a device name. Verify with fdisk -l to see the 10 GB disk added beside the 8 GB disk.

Format the attached volume with zfs, create a mount point, mount it at /db, and verify with df -h -t for a 10 gb zfs volume.

Create and verify files in the mounted volume on an EC2 instance, and learn recovery steps if the volume is corrupted or deleted.

Learn how to recover a deleted EBS volume by creating a snapshot. Create a new volume from the snapshot, attach it to the EC2 instance, mount, and verify data integrity.

Detach the volume from the EC2 instance, confirm it becomes available, delete it, and verify with system fdisk and unmount commands; recovery is possible from a snapshot if needed.

Learn how to recover data by creating a new volume from an AWS snapshot, then attach and mount it to an instance to access the files.

Explore how AMIs serve as pre-configured templates containing the operating system and applications to launch EC2 instances, covering AWS-provided, custom, and marketplace AMIs.

Explore the life cycle of an AWS AMI, from creating an EBS snapshot as a base to registering, launching, copying across regions, and deregistering, enabling quick deployment and disaster recovery.

Launch an EC2 instance, install Apache, create a default index.html, and configure the system to serve a web page. Then create a custom AMI of the configured server.

Learn to create an image (AMI) of a running EC2 instance by rebooting, capturing a snapshot, and validating the AMI and snapshot status from creation to availability.

Launch an EC2 instance from a custom AMI and verify that Apache is running. Open the security group inbound ports to enable web access via the public IP.

Ami is a preconfigured template to launch EC2 instances with the operating system and software across regions; a snapshot backs up a single EBS volume for restoration.

Recover a corrupted root volume by creating a volume from a snapshot in the same availability zone, then attach it to the stopped web server.

Start a web server, initiate the instance, and monitor the state from pending to running, while reviewing the use of snapshot in this lab.

CloudWatch monitors metrics, logs, events, and EC2 metrics, with default five-minute intervals and paid one-minute granularity for detailed monitoring.

Explore Amazon CloudWatch monitoring for EC2 instances, view dashboards, enable and interpret basic five minute monitoring, create alarms, and receive email notifications on CPU, disk, and network metrics.

Explore CloudWatch dashboards, alarms, logs, and metrics, plus features like X-Ray tracks and EventBridge integration to monitor and optimize AWS service performance with AI-driven insights.

Build a custom CloudWatch dashboard for a web server to monitor cpu and network utilization with line, stacked area, and gauge widgets.

Enable detailed monitoring for EC2 to switch from five-minute to one-minute intervals, add metrics like network packet in and network out and CPU utilization to the custom dashboard.

Configure a CloudWatch alarm for an EC2 web server by selecting CPU utilization, setting a threshold, and sending email notifications to the monitoring team when usage crosses the threshold.

Set a CloudWatch alarm to monitor CPU utilization of a web server every five minutes, with a static 80% threshold and one data point to alarm, triggering an email notification.

Configure actions for a CloudWatch alarm by selecting the trigger state—outside threshold, within threshold, or insufficient data—then create or select an SNS topic and confirm the email subscription.

Navigate CloudWatch alarms to confirm a newly created alarm for the server, refresh views, and verify the alarm state shows as okay.

Manipulate CPU load on a test web server to verify a CloudWatch alarm set at 80 percent for one minute, then note the email alert and instance ID.

Explore identity access management in AWS, including managing users, groups, roles, and policies to control who can access services like S3, EC2, and RDS.

Create IAM users and groups, attach S3 full-access and read-only policies, and assign John and Sonia to demonstrate how permissions are applied in AWS.

Create and assign IAM groups with S3 full access or read-only policies, attach policies to groups, and assign users John and Sonia to appropriate groups for access.

Verify IAM user access permissions by testing John User's S3 full access, including deleting and creating buckets, and observe EC2 denial before next lecture with Sonia User.

Verify IAM user access permissions in AWS by enabling console access for Sonia and granting read-only S3 access, showing that bucket deletion is blocked, and access via the command line.

Install AWS CLI v2 on Windows, verify the installation with aws --version, and prepare to use access key ID and secret access key to access the AWS Management Console.

Demonstrates generating an access key for an IAM user, configuring AWS CLI with that key, and testing permissions on S3 and EC2 to illustrate access control and constraints.

Learn to connect to AWS using the CLI by creating access keys, configuring the CLI, managing S3 buckets, and assigning policies to users and groups for console or CLI access.

IAM roles provide temporary permissions by attaching a role to an EC2 instance, letting access to S3 without long-term credentials.

Create an IAM role with Amazon S3 read only access policy for an EC2 instance, then attach the role and verify access by running a command on the EC2 instance.

Launch an EC2 instance, connect via SSH with a public IP and private key, and access it as the ec2-user. Attach IAM role with S3 read permissions to enable access.

Attach an IAM role to an EC2 instance and verify S3 access, demonstrating read-only permissions by listing buckets and encountering access denied on delete or create operations.

Create an IAM role with EC2 read-only policy, attach it to an instance, and verify EC2 describe-instances shows running details.

Configure multifactor authentication for a privileged AWS user using a virtual MFA app like Google Authenticator, securing console access and EC2 permissions in the AWS Management Console.

Assign a multi-factor authentication (MFA) device to the AWS learner user by selecting an MFA option (authenticator app, passkey, or hardware totp) and enrolling with a QR code.

Verify mfa login using Google Authenticator, assign the correct iam group and policy for ec2, and troubleshoot access issues to reboot an instance.

Learn to secure your AWS account with MFA for the root account, manage user permissions via groups, and customize password rotation policies to protect the AWS management console.