Hands-On Introduction to Cloud Computing with AWS

Enable root MFA in AWS IAM to secure the account after first login, choosing among passkeys, authenticator apps, or hardware TOT tokens, while reviewing access keys and console access.

Create and manage IAM users in AWS, assign permissions and groups, learn sign-in differences between root and user accounts, and prepare for policy-based access control.

Learn how AWS permissions policies control access by attaching IAM policies to a user, practicing least privilege, and moving from access denied to full IAM or specific service access.

Use groups to manage AWS IAM permissions, attach read-only S3 and IAM policies to a developers group, and assign users to groups for easier policy management.

Create roles in the AWS IAM console to let services like Lambda assume permissions, such as S3 read-only access, using STS assume role and trusted entities for cross-account access.

Create custom IAM policies using the visual editor or JSON to specify S3 actions. Understand that the sum of attached policies determines permissions, and that explicit deny overrides allowed actions.

Set up and use an account alias in AWS IAM to create a memorable sign-in URL, replacing the account ID for logging in.

Enforce aws iam password policy with a default eight-character minimum, mixed case, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters, and customize expiration, admin reset, and last-password reuse protections.

Explore global versus regional services in the AWS console, noting IAM and CloudFront as global, while S3 uses regional settings.

Explore Amazon S3, the simple storage service, a cloud-based object storage that is scalable, secure, and highly available for backup and recovery, archiving, static website hosting, and media storage.

Create an S3 bucket in an AWS region with a unique name and general purpose storage, then configure object ownership, block public access, versioning, and encryption with S3 managed keys.

Learn how pre-signed URLs in Amazon S3 provide temporary, time-limited access to private objects for secure sharing, and how to generate and set expiration in the S3 console.

Learn how to enable versioning in an S3 bucket, create and view versions, manage delete markers, and recover previous versions using pre-signed URLs.

Explore Amazon S3 storage classes to optimize costs from standard to Glacier and Glacier Deep Archive, with intelligent-tiering that adapts to access patterns and retrieval hours.

Create a general-purpose S3 bucket, enable ACL and set public access to host a static website, while understanding object-level permissions and bucket policy considerations.

enables static website hosting on an S3 bucket, uploading an index.html, setting public access, and using the HTTP endpoint, with notes on CloudFront and SSL integration.

Explore EC2, backbone of AWS compute services, enabling virtual servers to run apps and workloads with flexible instance types and storage, and pay for the compute power you use.

Launch your first linux instance in aws ec2 by selecting an amazon linux ami, choosing a t2 micro, creating a key pair, configuring security groups, and enabling a public ip.

Connect to an Amazon Linux EC2 instance using EC2 Instance Connect or a local SSH client, then rely on security groups and a PEM key.

Launch a Windows EC2 instance with Microsoft Windows Server 2022 base and choose the free tier micro. Connect via remote desktop protocol (RDP) and review storage and security group settings.

Connect to a Windows EC2 instance using RDP, retrieve the administrator password with a key pair, and log in via a remote desktop client; note regions and instance type changes.

Explore AWS EC2 instance types and purchase models, from general purpose to compute and memory optimized families, and learn on-demand, savings plan, and spot pricing.

Discover how public IPs change when you stop and start EC2 Linux instances, and how reboot preserves them. Allocate and attach an elastic IP to keep a stable address.

Configure security groups to allow HTTP traffic on port 80, install nginx on an Amazon Linux instance, start and enable the service, and verify access with curl to localhost.

Learn how security groups manage inbound and outbound traffic in AWS, including stateful rules, referencing other security groups, and using private IPs for inter-instance HTTP access.

Learn how to use EC2 user data to auto configure an instance by running a bash startup script that installs nginx, updates packages, and enables nginx on boot.

Back up and reuse EC2 resources by creating snapshots, building custom AMIs from snapshots, and launching instances from your own AMI catalog.

Explore monitoring CPU utilization and use auto scaling groups with a launch template to automatically scale EC2 instances from 1 to 3 across subnets.

observe how an auto scaling group uses a target tracking policy with cpu average utilization to scale out and in, including instance warmup and a cpu stress test.

Trigger the auto scaling group to scale out during the stress test, then scale in as the desired capacity moves from 3 to 2 to 1, terminating two EC2 instances.

Learn how application load balancers distribute HTTP and HTTPS traffic across EC2 targets via target groups, health checks, and auto scaling integration to handle demand.

Configure an application load balancer (ALB) in a VPC with a target group, and run three nginx servers on Amazon Linux 2 to display Alb 1, Alb 2, Alb 3.

Register targets to the target group, run health checks to ensure three healthy instances behind an application load balancer, then observe round-robin traffic and integrate with autoscaling.

Learn elastic file system (EFS) as a scalable network file system that lets you share data across EC2 instances, configured via VPC, security groups, and EFS utilities.

Perform EC2 cleanup by terminating all instances, deleting the load balancer, target group, auto scaling group, EFS, snapshots, and AMIs, and prepare to discuss VPC in the next section.

Explore Amazon VPC, a logically isolated cloud network for launching resources like EC2 and databases. Learn core components—subnets, internet gateway, NAT gateway, security groups, NACLs, and route tables—to manage traffic.

Navigate the AWS VPC dashboard to create a VPC with IPv4 CIDR blocks, two availability zones, public and private subnets, and components like internet gateways, NAT gateways, and route tables.

Explore the VPC dashboard to understand VPCs, subnets, route tables, and network ACLs, including public and private subnets with internet gateway routing. Learn how NAT gateways support private subnet access.

Launch two EC2s in a VPC: one in a public subnet with auto-assign public IP and SSH, the other in a private subnet behind a NAT gateway, with nginx tested.

Explore how route tables and a nat gateway enable internet access for a private ec2 through a bastion host, and how removing routes breaks connectivity.

Explore network ACLs in a VPC, applying stateless inbound and outbound rules at the subnet level, and learn how rule numbers determine traffic allow/deny and evaluation order.

Enable VPC flow logs to monitor and debug network traffic. Route logs to CloudWatch, S3, or Amazon Data Firehose and inspect source, destination, and actions.

Create an iam user with access keys and s3 read-only and iam read-only permissions, install aws cli on linux, and verify cli version after connecting to an ec2 via bastion.

Configure the AWS CLI with your access key id, secret access key, default region us east one, and json output; then use aws s3 ls and aws s3 cp.

Explore how a VPC endpoint enables private access to S3 from a private subnet without internet or NAT gateway, using gateway and interface endpoint configurations and S3 ls validation.

Learn how console to code translates browser actions into CLI, CDK templates, and CloudFormation templates for EC2, VPC, and RDS, and generate deployable commands.

Explore AWS Route 53, the DNS service that translates domain names to IPs, registers domains, and routes traffic to EC2, S3, or load balancers, with health checks and automatic failover.

Register your own domain using aws route53, enable auto renew and privacy protection, review and submit, and learn how route53 creates a hosted zone for each registered domain.

Examine whois data and domain basics, including registration, auto renew, and transfer in, then explore hosted zones in Route 53 using cloud shell for hands-on AWS learning.

Discover how to configure a Route 53 hosted zone, manage NS and SOA records, and create a record or a CNAME record with TTL to route traffic using simple policies.

attach a domain to s3 by creating a bucket named after the domain, enabling static website hosting, and routing via a route 53 alias to the s3 website endpoint.

Launch an EC2 instance, assign a public IP, and create a Route 53 A record to map a domain subdomain to that IP, then install nginx and serve a page.

Launch a second public EC2 instance with nginx, register it to a target group, and route traffic through an application load balancer via Route 53 domain mapping.

Configure https for a domain using ACM with DNS validation via Route 53, attach the certificate to an ALB listener on port 443, and update security groups for https access.

Learn how to route traffic between two EC2 instances using weighted records in Route 53, explore TTL caching, and verify results with nslookup and dig.

Discover how Amazon CloudFront uses a global CDN and edge locations to cache and deliver static and dynamic content, reducing latency. Integrates with S3, EC2, and Route 53 for performance.

Navigate the AWS management console to CloudFront, review the dashboard and distributions, and explore telemetry, monitoring, logging, and caching analytics, noting the free tier of HTTP(S) requests and data transfer.

Pair a public S3 bucket with a CloudFront distribution to host a static website, configure the origin and default cache behavior, and preview WAF and Route 53 integration.

Attach a custom domain to your CloudFront distribution via an alternate domain name (CNAME), link it through Route 53, and apply an ACM SSL certificate for HTTPS.

Learn how to front a private S3 bucket with CloudFront using Origin Access Control, enabling secure caching of content by letting the distribution fetch objects.

Front an EC2 instance with CloudFront using nginx, and terminate SSL at CloudFront while redirecting http to https for secure access via a DNS domain.

Configure CloudFront geographic restrictions with block and allow lists, observe a 403 error, and secure your distribution, then clean up by disabling and deleting distributions and terminating the EC2 instance.

Explore databases across relational options with Amazon RDS, including MySQL and PostgreSQL, then NoSQL with DynamoDB and DocumentDB, and consider Aurora serverless for automatic scaling with unpredictable workloads.

Explore AWS RDS by creating a Postgres DB instance in a learn VPC, with a subnet group of public subnets, and connect via the endpoint using DBeaver.

Modify an RDS instance to enable multi-az deployment with a standby for data redundancy and automatic failover, while managing maintenance windows and backups and considering final snapshots during deletion.

Explore DynamoDB, a fast, scalable managed NoSQL service. Create tables with a partition key and optional sort key, and choose on-demand or provisioned capacity.

Learn how to create and manage items in a dynamodb table via the console, adding attributes beyond the primary key, handling uniqueness, and exporting data for sdk-based applications.

Launch a DocumentDB cluster, a fully managed MongoDB compatible service. Choose between instance-based or elastic cluster, configure network, encryption at rest, and backups, then monitor creation.

Download certificate authority and connect to the DocumentDB cluster with the mongo shell or a MongoDB URI, spin up an EC2 in a VPC with security groups to test connectivity.

Launch aurora postgres-compatible serverless in rds, configure serverless v2 with minimum and maximum acu, enable idle pause, and connect via vpc subnets and dbeaver.

Explore AWS Lambda as a serverless compute service that runs code without provisioning servers, driven by events and triggers, with pay-as-you-go pricing and automatic scaling.

Learn to create a hello world AWS Lambda from scratch, test with a sample event, and expose it via a function URL, while reviewing runtime options and basic limits.

Explore how to configure environment variables in AWS Lambda, deploy and test code, and monitor invocations with CloudWatch metrics and logs.

Create a Lambda function and trigger it with an S3 event, configure a new role, and monitor results in CloudWatch while processing S3 objects.