AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Cert Guide): AWS Hands-on

Explore AWS compute services such as EC2, Elastic Beanstalk, Lambda, and container options, and learn how compute capacity scales with workload, with scalable, secure, and pay-as-you-go deployment.

Explore how AWS EC2 instances provide virtual hardware with diverse compute and memory profiles, on-demand and spot options, and AMI configurations for tailored workloads.

Launch and connect to a Linux EC2 instance, applying security updates. Configure the AMI, instance type, storage, and security groups, then review settings across regions and availability zones.

Learn to securely use any instance by configuring public and elastic IPs, DNS names, and key-based access, then deploy with Amazon machine images from marketplace or custom uploads.

Launch and connect to an Amazon Linux general-purpose instance by configuring quantity, subnet, storage type and size, tags, security groups, and key pair, then review and launch for SSH access.

Learn about Amazon machine images (ami) and launching single or multiple instances in the cloud, along with instance types, storage options (ephemeral and persistent), security groups, elastic IPs, and vpc.

Launch a Linux instance by selecting an Amazon Linux ami, choosing a general purpose type, configuring network, storage, and tags, then setting up a security group and launching the instance.

Practice connecting to an AWS instance by creating and using a key pair, saving the private key, and connecting via SSH using the instance's public DNS.

Explore elastic block store features for EC2, including block-level volumes replicated within an availability zone, with multiple volumes per instance, and types such as magnetic HDD, SSD, and provisioned IOPS.

Learn elastic IP addresses for static public IPs, DNS propagation, and rapid failover, plus private cloud design with subnets, VPN, and CloudWatch monitoring with auto scaling.

Explore Amazon EC2 features for high performance computing, including cluster compute and GPU-enabled instances, and use AWS Systems Manager to manage software.

Explore Amazon EC2 uses and benefits, including elastic scale computing, control via API and root access, flexible instance types, secure VPC networking, and on-demand, reserved, and spot pricing.

ECS is a scalable, high-performance container management service on EC2 that runs Docker containers on a managed cluster, enabling deployment and fault tolerance with security groups and elastic load balancing.

Elastic Beanstalk provides a managed environment to quickly deploy and scale web applications without worrying about infrastructure. It handles deployment, provisioning, load balancing, and monitoring, reducing management complexity.

Explore AWS Lambda and AWS Batch to run code on demand with zero administration, automatic scaling, and high availability, and manage hundreds to thousands of batch jobs in the cloud.

Explore AWS Lightsail to quickly launch and monitor virtual machines with pre-configured OS and application images, plus DNS, static IP, and data transfer at low prices from a single console.

Explore AWS storage services, including S3, Glacier, and Storage Gateway, and learn how object storage uses buckets, objects, permissions, and metadata across regions.

Learn to create an Amazon S3 bucket with a unique name in a chosen region via the AWS Management Console, upload objects, and set basic properties.

Learn to make an object public by adjusting bucket and object properties and permissions, copy the public link, and verify access while noting access denied errors.

Enable versioning on your bucket to manage object versions, upload and update files, and view latest and previous versions for version control.

Explore lifecycle management in S3 by creating lifecycle rules to transition objects between storage classes after a minimum of 30 days, balancing cost.

Enable static hosting on your bucket via properties and endpoint, then create index.html and error.html, upload them, and make the bucket public for browser access.

Practice enabling web hosting by uploading objects, setting the index and error document, making objects public, and validating the hosted site locally.

Cover Amazon S3 object storage: objects with data and metadata are stored in buckets, identified by a unique key, and lifecycle management moves data between hot, warm, and cold storage.

Explore storage management in AWS, focusing on S3 object lifecycle, storage classes, analytics, data lifecycle management, IAM configuration, CloudWatch monitoring, and bucket replication to a destination bucket.

Explore AWS storage management concepts, including storage classes like Standard, Infrequent Access, Glacier, data transfer tools, and core security with IAM policies, encryption, versioning, and access controls.

Explore elastic block store as persistent, encrypted block-level storage for EC2 instances, with replication across an availability zone, enabling snapshots and supporting magnetic and provisioned IOPS SSD volumes for workloads.

Explore elastic block store volumes, comparing solid state drives and hard disk drives, and learn to create, encrypt with a customer managed key, and optimize volumes and instances in AWS.

Explore Amazon elastic file system, a global, scalable storage across availability zones, delivering high throughput, read-after-write consistency, and low latency for big data and shared EC2 access.

Explore aws elastic file system (efs) and how it provides a shared file system across subnets and availability zones. Learn mounting, security groups, and iam-based access controls and monitoring options.

Explore AWS Glacier's low-cost, long-term storage solution for infrequently accessed data, including data archiving, online backup, retrieval times of 3–5 hours, and job-based notifications.

Learn how Amazon glacier handles archive operations—uploading, retrieving, and deleting archives—using region-specific endpoints and AWS authentication, and explore the data model, immutability, lifecycle management, and policies.

Explore glacier key features, including retrieval options (standard 3-5 hours, immediate under 5 minutes), Snowball and import/export transfers, access control with policies and tagging, and automated lifecycle management.

Discover data security in Amazon Glacier: upload archives, leverage three retrieval options, and harden protection with vault lock policies, authentication, and resource-based access controls.

Explore Amazon Glacier data retrieval policies, including the free day only policy, the maximum policy, and the no limit policy, and how vault logging and archive retrieval manage access.

Learn how aws storage gateway connects on-premises appliances to cloud storage, enabling file and volume gateways, activation via a virtual machine image, and backups to glacier.

Discover AWS RDS components, including database instances, storage options (magnetic and SSD), VPC deployment, and security groups, plus parameter and option groups for engine configuration.

Practice creating an Amazon RDS relational database in the cloud, selecting engine and instance size, configuring master user and VPC security groups, and enabling backups and monitoring.

Explore the AWS RDS interface options, including the management console, CLI, and API, to access and manage relational databases.

Explore Amazon DynamoDB, a fully managed NoSQL database that delivers high performance, scalable tables of items and attributes with primary keys and indexes, maintaining consistent latency across partitions.

Dynamo db components explain items with attributes in a table, identified by a primary key with partition and sort keys, plus global and local secondary indexes.

Learn to set up DynamoDB Local, run offline with an executable jar across platforms, and integrate with the CLI, console, streams, Lambda, and identity federation access control.

Manage an AWS DB instance, view endpoint and status, configure alarms and maintenance windows, enable read replicas, take snapshots, and monitor CPU, storage, memory, and connections.

Explore how to monitor and manage a db instance state, view metrics, perform instance actions, manage replicas, and handle snapshots, backups, edits, and deletions.

Learn how AWS ElastiCache provides a high-performance, scalable in-memory caching solution for cloud apps, with memcached support and automatic upgrades, security, VPC, and monitoring features.

Create an Amazon ElastiCache cluster using the memcached engine via the AWS management console; configure nodes, zone, and security group, then launch.

Explore Amazon Redshift, a fast, fully managed data warehouse that scales with leader and compute nodes. Use slices for storage and ODBC or JDBC connections for SQL-based analytics.

Explore Amazon Redshift cluster management, including creating and resizing clusters, managing compute nodes, taking snapshots, encryption and SSL connections, auditing, security groups, and access control, plus performance monitoring.

Practice creating and managing a memcached cluster in AWS, including adding nodes, adjusting capacity, configuring security groups, and handling backups and replicas via the management console.

Practice redis cluster part 2 demonstrates creating a replica of a cluster, enabling availability and synchronization across replicas, and managing memcached nodes.

practice building and querying a sql database by adding data, creating user credentials, and managing comments through a connected interface and engine.

Create a MySQL database on AWS relational databases via the management console, configuring deployment, storage, password, subnet group, accessibility, and backups, then launch, connect, monitor, and snapshot.

Practice connecting a database instance to sql, using a name and password, and following console steps to establish a connection and demonstrate the restored connection.

Explore AWS networking and content delivery by building isolated VPCs with custom IP ranges and subnets, and using CloudFront, Direct Connect, Route 53, and EC2.

Explore AWS VPC components such as subnets, route tables, internet gateway, security groups, and network ACLs, and DHCP options, showing how traffic routes and subnet associations work.

Explore how aws vpc security groups act as virtual firewalls, controlling inbound and outbound traffic for instances, with default security group behavior and up to 500 groups per vpc.

Explore AWS VPC components, focusing on network access control lists and security groups. Compare stateless NACLs with stateful security groups to control subnet and instance traffic.

Explore Amazon VPC components and networking, including VPC peering across accounts in the same region, non-transitive routing, and internet access via NAT and VPN connections.

Understand the virtual private cloud, subnets, and cidr blocks within an isolated vpc. See how default and non-default vpcs handle internet access with internet gateways, elastic ips, and security groups.

Explore AWS VPC concepts and practical setup, including management console and API access, resource configuration and relationships, and how region limits and limit increases affect subnets and security groups.

Create and configure an AWS VPC with private and public subnets, enabling isolation for instances. Learn to set up endpoints and launch your first instance in the VPC.

Practice creating a virtual private cloud and its subnets in AWS, including a first public subnet with a 192.168.1.0 CIDR block, and learning to create, edit, and delete subnets.

Learn how CloudFront, a global content delivery network with edge locations, reduces latency by caching at the edge and serving from origin servers, with HIPAA and PCI DSS compliance.

CloudFront regional edge caches place data close to viewers to reduce latency and cost. Learn how origins, caching, and invalidation support fast delivery while maintaining PCI DSS and HIPAA compliance.

Explore how to create and configure an AWS CloudFront distribution, including origin setup, distribution behavior, protocol settings, TTL values, access restrictions, IPv6 support, and invalidations.

Establish private connectivity between your premises and AWS with Direct Connect to reduce costs and boost bandwidth. Create private or public virtual interfaces to access VPC, S3.

Outlines AWS Direct Connect requirements, including co-location with a static location or partner network, and notes limits that can be increased on request for virtual interfaces and BGP sessions.

Learn how to create an S3 bucket and set up an EMR cluster in AWS, including bucket naming rules and region selection.

Route 53 is a scalable dns web service that registers domains, translates domain names to ip addresses, routes traffic, and performs health checks to direct to healthy resources.

Discover how Amazon Route 53 uses hosted zones and resource record sets to map domain names to ip addresses, answer dns queries via recursive resolvers, and route traffic.

Learn to use Route 53 to create hosted zones, register domains, configure health checks, and implement traffic policies to monitor DNS performance.

Register a domain name, check availability, and choose a top-level domain. Learn how DNS resolves names to IP addresses using Route 53 and resource record sets to route traffic.

Explore how Route 53 health checks monitor endpoints, trigger CloudWatch alarms and SNS notifications, and configure intervals, thresholds, and IAM-based access.

Discover elastic load balancing in AWS, distributing traffic across EC2 instances in multiple availability zones, with internet facing or internal setups, health checks, and SSL support.

This practice session guides you through creating an AWS load balancer in the management console, selecting load balancer type, configuring security groups, health checks, and VPC subnets.

Learn how to configure AWS auto scaling, create launch configurations, set up alarms and scaling groups, and apply policies and notifications to manage instance capacity.

Discover how to create a hosted zone, transfer existing domains, and manage record sets and routing policies for reliable endpoints. Monitor the health and performance of your application.

Create and configure a traffic policy in the console by specifying a name, version 1, and description, then set primary and secondary locations, rates, and events to manage traffic flow.

Explore AWS management tools such as CloudWatch, CloudFormation, and CloudTrail for provisioning and monitoring resources. Access CloudWatch for metrics, alarms, notifications, auto scaling, and log management with IAM access control.

Explore how Amazon CloudWatch monitors and alarms, distinguish basic and detailed monitoring, and use namespaces, dimensions, and data retention to manage cloud metrics.

Learn how Amazon CloudWatch computes statistics from metrics using namespace and dimensions; set periods and units, monitor anomalies with standard deviation, and create alarms that trigger notifications via the CLI.

Learn how AWS CloudFormation uses templates to define and provision a stack of related resources, enabling reusable, versioned infrastructure as code with safe updates and deletions.

Explore AWS CloudTrail to log and audit all API calls, with encrypted log files delivered to a bucket, configurable trails across regions and accounts, and integration with CloudWatch.

Learn how identity and access management controls access to the cloud and how cloudtrail captures object-level API operations for log management with cloudwatch logs, regional and global trails, and alarms.

Explore AWS CloudTrail supported services, including analytics (athena, emr), data pipelines (data pipeline, kinesis streams and firehose), and compute and storage tools (ec2, s3, elasticache, elasticsearch).

Explore how AWS Config provides a detailed view of resource configurations, relationships, and historical changes, enabling snapshot retrieval, compliance monitoring, and auditing across AWS resources.

Explore AWS OpsWorks for configuration management and deployment using Chef cookbooks and knife to provision, configure, and monitor stacks of cloud resources.

Explore AWS Service Catalog to create, manage, and distribute portfolios of approved products including servers, databases, and web apps, allowing self-service access with governance and granular permissions.

Discover AWS managed services, health checks, and ongoing visibility into resource performance. Access tools via the AWS management console and CLI to monitor events across accounts.

Explore AWS trusted advisor and how AWS support plans—basic, global, business, and enterprise—deliver 24/7 help, health checks, and guidance to optimize cost, reliability, performance, and security.

Explore AWS security, identity and compliance concepts with IAM, root user, and IAM users. Learn how access control policies, CLI and temporary security tokens enable secure resource access.

Create and manage IAM groups, attach policies, add users, and edit or delete groups within identity and access management to control access and permissions.

Create an IAM user by selecting programmatic or console access, set a password, and assign the user to an administrative group with applicable policies.

Practice defining an AWS role by creating a group, adding users, selecting managed policies, and assigning read or full access in a hands-on AWS workflow.

Create and manage an iam group, attach policies such as administrator access and amazon athena full access, and assign users with programmatic or sign in access to enforce security.

Create and use a role, manage user groups and policies, and review trust relationships to control access and credentials.

Explore how AWS Inspector analyzes resource behavior, runs security assessments, and generates findings using assessment templates and rule packages to evaluate configurations.

Explore how Amazon Inspector deploys an agent on each instance, collects data, sends heartbeats, and processes assessments to generate findings and reports with actionable recommendations.

Master AWS Certificate Manager within a security identity and compliance context, detailing digital certificates, certificate authorities, PKI, and SSL/TLS that establish trusted identities for web apps.

Explore AWS directory service options—cloud directory, Cognito, Simple AD, and managed Microsoft Active Directory, plus AD Connector—and their use for identity, access management, single sign-on, and cloud-to-premises integration.

Manage your data with AWS Directory Service part 2 by configuring status notifications with Simple Notification Service, using snapshots for point-in-time restore, and controlling access via users, groups, and roles.

Explore how to create and manage IAM policies, attach and detach policies, and apply read-only or full-access permissions, including password policy settings.

Learn to create and manage keys, encrypt data, and define key policies and permissions, enabling secure access control in a cloud environment.

Learn to configure MFA options—virtual and hardware devices—within identity and access management, set up sign-in and password policies, and customize sign-in links to secure AWS accounts.

Explore AWS WAF and Shield services to monitor, block or allow web traffic, mitigate DDoS attacks, configure rules, geographic blocking, CloudFront integration, and monitoring with CloudWatch.

Explore how compliance reports drive security identity and governance in cloud deployments. Learn how third-party attestations validate control environments, support risk management, and reinforce data protection.

Explore aws messaging with the fully managed simple notification service and simple queue service designed to decouple and scale distributed applications, enabling send, store, and receive messages with reliable delivery.

Explore AWS SQS concepts, including standard and FIFO queues, message delivery, visibility timeout, and the message lifecycle for high availability and deduplication.

Practice creating an AWS SQS queue, choosing standard or FIFO delivery, and learn to send, view, and delete messages while subscribing queues and configuring permissions.

Explore configuring AWS Simple Queue Service by creating standard and FIFO queues, setting region, visibility timeout, retention, and size, then send and receive messages in the management console.

Learn the architectural overview of AWS SNS, including resource policies and access control evaluation. Discover how requests are evaluated against policies and messages reach mobile endpoints via push notification services.

Learn to create an AWS SNS topic, set a topic name and display name, then create an email subscription and confirm it via email to activate the topic's ARN.

Publish a message to a newly created topic and verify delivery via the subscription endpoint such as email. The exercise covers creating the topic, adding a subscription, and publishing.

Explore Amazon simple notification service basics, including creating topics, subscriptions, and publishing text messages or push notifications across platforms and regions for scalable, global messaging.

Learn how Amazon SES enables scalable, sophisticated email delivery by sending outbound messages through ISP networks, handling bounces and complaints, and optimizing delivery to inboxes.

Explore how Amazon SES enables sending and receiving email on a reliable, scalable platform, with identity management, monitoring, and delivery statistics.

Explore Amazon workspaces by selecting a region, choosing bundles, and creating user accounts to launch cloud desktops with Windows options. Connect from any device and customize storage and applications.

Explore AWS AppStream 2.0, a fully managed secure application streaming service that delivers instant on access to browser-based desktop apps, with stack, image builder, fleets, and access control via IAM.

Explore AppStream 2.0, a fully managed, secure application streaming service that delivers apps to browsers on demand. Import, install, and publish applications, then stream them via the browser.