Explore the AWS console user interface update, highlighting the new white interface with rounded blue buttons while confirming that usability remains the same as the old gray, square-button design.

Launch an Amazon Linux EC2 instance (t2 micro) named MyFirstInstance, create a DemoKeyPair, and open SSH from anywhere, connecting via SSH or EC2 Instance Connect as ec2-user.

Learn how to change an EC2 instance type on an EBS-backed instance by stopping, selecting a new type (e.g., from t2.micro to t2.small), and starting again, with data preserved.

Create and configure EC2 placement groups to optimize network performance with cluster groups, distribute instances with spread groups, and manage partition type options, then launch instances in your chosen group.

Configure the CloudWatch unified agent on EC2 to collect metrics and logs with an IAM role, store the config in SSM parameter store, and monitor memory, CPU, and httpd logs.

Explore how EC2 status checks detect hardware and software issues with system, instance, and attached EBS checks, and how to recover using CloudWatch alarms or an auto scaling group.

Describe the no-reboot option for creating AMIs from running EC2 instances, noting file system integrity risks, and contrast with rebooted AMIs via AWS backup or scheduled Lambda workflows.

Automate the creation, customization, testing, and distribution of EC2 AMIs with EC2 Image Builder. Schedule builds, validate AMIs with tests you define, and pay only for the underlying resources.

Create and customize AMIs with EC2 Image Builder by building a demo pipeline, recipes, and components, including Amazon Linux 2, Corretto 11, and AWS CLI 2.

Launch three Amazon Linux 2 EC2 instances, attach the SSM managed instance role, and register them in Fleet Manager to run the SSM agent with no inbound rules.

Discover tagging basics and resource groups to organize AWS resources by environment and team, enabling automated actions with SSM across EC2, S3, DynamoDB, and Lambda.

Learn how to use ssm automation to patch an ami, update an auto-scaling group launch template, and refresh ec2 instances with a patched ami using ec2 instance refresh.

Learn how the SSM Parameter Store securely stores configuration and secrets, supports KMS encryption, versioning, hierarchy, IAM access, EventBridge notifications, and CloudFormation integration.

Practice using AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store to create hierarchical parameters, such as /my-app/dev/db-url, and query them with the CLI, including decryption and recursion.

Enable Systems Manager to manage EC2 instances without an instance profile via DHMC, using an identity role and IMDSv2, unlocking Session Manager, Patch Manager, and inventory per region.

Enable the default host management in AWS Systems Manager Fleet Manager, create the IAM role, and verify by launching an EC2 instance with an updated SSM agent.

Enable SSM inventory to collect metadata from EC2 and on-premises instances, including installed software and configurations. Store or query this data in the AWS console, S3, and Athena.

Automate patching of EC2 and on-premises servers with SSM Patch Manager for Windows, Linux, and MacOS updates, and manage baselines, groups, maintenance windows, and compliance reports to S3.

Learn how opscenter centralizes security, performance, and event issues into one view, enabling rapid investigation and automated remediation with opsitems and runbooks for EC2 and on-prem.

Understand scalability and high availability, including vertical scalability, horizontal scalability (elasticity), and multi-AZ deployments across data centers for failover and resilience.

Learn to launch two EC2 instances, configure an application load balancer with a target group, and verify traffic distribution and instance health via HTTP health checks.

Explore the network load balancer, a layer 4 TCP/UDP option with ultra-low latency and static IPs per AZ. Use target groups with EC2 or private IPs and TCP/HTTP/HTTPS health checks.

Create a network load balancer with a security group and TCP port 80, using HTTP health checks to balance traffic across EC2 instances in a target group.

Enable sticky sessions on elastic load balancer to keep a user connected to the same backend instance. Learn about application-based and duration-based cookies and how the load balancer generates them.

Understand how SSL/TLS certificates encrypt traffic between clients and load balancers and how SNI and ACM let ALB/NLB serve multiple domains.

Explore connection draining or deregistration delay in ELB, allowing inflight requests to finish as an EC2 instance drains, with 1–3600 seconds (default 300) across classic, application, and network load balancers.

Monitor elastic load balancer metrics with CloudWatch, including healthy/unhealthy hosts, request counts, latency, and surge queue; troubleshoot 4xx/5xx errors, enable S3 access logs, and use X-Amzn-Trace-Id for request tracing.

Learn how alb rules are processed in order, with a default rule and weighted target groups enabling blue green deployments and precise routing to targets.

Create an auto scaling group with a launch template using Amazon Linux 2 and t2 micro, attach to a load balancer target group, and configure health checks.

Explore automatic scaling for auto scaling groups with dynamic, predictive, and scheduled actions, and configure target tracking, simple and step scaling using CloudWatch alarms for CPU utilization.

Learn to monitor your auto scaling group with CloudWatch by enabling ASG metrics—GroupMinSize, GroupMaxSize, GroupDesiredCapacity, GroupInServiceInstances, PendingInstances, StandbyInstances, TerminatingInstances, and TotalInstances—and EC2 metrics like CPU utilization and network in/out.

Explore the AWS Auto Scaling service, which manages scalable resources like EC2, Spot Fleet, ECS, DynamoDB WCU/RCU, and Aurora read replicas, using dynamic scaling and predictive scaling to optimize availability.

Discover how CloudFormation enables infrastructure as code by declaring resources in declarative templates that automatically provision and link EC2, S3, and load balancers.

Learn to create a CloudFormation stack from a yaml template in us-east-1, inspect resources and events, and verify an ec2 instance created by the stack.

Learn to read YAML and leverage CloudFormation templates with nested objects, arrays, multi-line strings, and comments, improving readability and unleashing the power of CloudFormation.

Learn how CloudFormation mappings define region- and architecture-specific values, such as AMI IDs, using the RegionMap and FindInMap function.

Learn how CloudFormation outputs and exports enable cross-stack referencing by exporting values like VPC IDs and subnet IDs, and importing them into other stacks to drive collaborative deployments.

Explore CloudFormation deletion policy and how it controls resource fate on stack deletion. Learn delete, retain, and snapshot options, including S3 bucket caveats and snapshots for backups.

Explore CloudFormation UpdateReplacePolicy, deciding between retain, snapshot, or delete and create when updates replace resources, and compare it to DeletionPolicy for resources like RDS, EBS, and ElastiCache.

Learn how stack policies in CloudFormation use JSON to restrict updates, protecting resources like the production database, while explicitly allowing updates where needed.

Enable termination protection in CloudFormation to prevent accidental deletes of stacks, and learn how to enable it in the console and delete only after disabling it.

Master dynamic references in CloudFormation by sourcing values from Systems Manager Parameter Store and Secrets Manager, enabling rotation and secure password handling for RDS and Aurora databases.

Learn how CloudFormation uses cfn-signal and a WaitCondition to confirm EC2 initialization, signaling success or failure back to the stack via a creation policy with timeout and count.

Explore CloudFormation nested stacks that reuse components via the parent template, update parent to refresh nested stacks, differentiate them from cross stacks, and leverage parameters, outputs like WebsiteURL, and CAPABILITY_AUTO_EXPAND.

Deploy stacksets across multiple regions with CloudFormation to enable AWS config, create admin and execution IAM roles, and manage config resources and drift across accounts.

Add stacks to a stack set by selecting action, specify more regions and accounts, override parameters if needed, and submit to create new stack instances and keep deployments current.

Discover how AWS Lambda enables on-demand, serverless code execution with automated scaling, no server management, and the generous free tier, plus broad integrations with API Gateway, S3, and DynamoDB.

Learn to build and test Lambda functions, watch automatic scaling, and trigger them from streaming analytics, mobile, and S3 events, while monitoring with CloudWatch logs.

Integrate CloudWatch Events or EventBridge with Lambda by creating EventBridge rules for a serverless cron or for CodePipeline state changes, triggering Lambda tasks in a hands-on setup.

Learn to integrate Lambda with EventBridge by creating a Python 3.9 function, wiring it to a one-minute schedule rule, and verifying permissions and logs in CloudWatch.

Create ebs snapshots anytime, even when attached, and copy them across availability zones or regions. Automate backups with data lifecycle manager and explore fast snapshot restore, archive, and recycle bin.

Explore EBS snapshots in depth: create, copy, and encrypt snapshots; manage storage tiers, lifecycle policies, cross-region copy, cross-account sharing, and recycle bin retention for recovery.

Contrast ebs volumes with efs file systems: ebs attaches to a single instance per az and uses snapshots for cross-az migration. Efs is a network file system across azs.

Terminate active instances to release attached EBS volumes, then delete snapshots and volumes, detaching as needed, and finally remove the EFS file system by its ID.

Explore S3 security with user-based IAM policies and resource-based bucket policies, enabling cross-account and public access, ACLs, and encryption.

Learn how Amazon S3 versioning, enabled at the bucket level, creates file versions on each upload, uses delete markers to mark deletions, and enables restore, rollback, and safe suspension.

Enable versioning and configure asynchronous S3 replication, choosing cross-region (CRR) or same-region (SRR) between buckets with cross-account IAM permissions for compliance, latency, log aggregation, and production and test synchronization.

Enable S3 replication to copy only new objects after activation. Use S3 batch replication to capture existing objects and failed replication, and optionally replicate delete markers, with no replication chaining.

Practice setting up Amazon S3 replication by creating origin and replica buckets, enabling versioning, configuring a replication rule, and testing cross-region replication with file uploads and delete markers.

Explore Amazon S3 replication time control (RTC), guaranteeing 99.99% replication within 15 minutes, with CloudWatch metrics and alerts. Replicate to same or different regions to meet compliance, at per-gb cost.