Getting Started

September 7, 2023

#aws

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud platform that offers a wide range of services and tools to help you build, deploy, and manage software applications and infrastructure. Traditionally, you would

What is AWS?

AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, providing on-demand cloud computing services to individuals, startups, enterprises, and governments. AWS offers a vast array of services, including computing power, storage, databases, machine learning, analytics, and more. With AWS, you can access scalable and flexible resources that enable you to innovate and scale your projects with ease.

There are over 200 products and services offered by AWS, but a few key ones are listed below:

Compute Services

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute): Provides compute capacity in the cloud, allowing you to run virtual servers.
AWS Lambda: Enables serverless computing, where you can deploy and run code in response to events without managing server infrastructure.
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): Orchestrate and deploy Docker containers to the cloud without managing servers.

Storage and Database Services

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service): Offers object storage with high availability and durability.
Amazon DynamoDB: A fully-managed NoSQL database service with fast, predictable performance.
Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service): Provides managed relational databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others.

Analytics and Big Data

Amazon Redshift: A fully managed data warehouse service for querying and analyzing large datasets.
Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce): Provides a cloud solution for processing large amounts of data.
Amazon Kinesis: A suite of services for real-time data streaming and analytics.

Thes are just a few of the many services offered by AWS. For a comprehensive list of services, visit aws.amazon.com to learn more.

Getting Started with AWS

If you’re new to AWS, start by signing up for an AWS account. You’ll need to provide some basic information and payment details. AWS offers a Free Tier for limited access to many of its services for the first 12 months.

Explore the AWS Console

Once you’ve created an account, you can access the AWS Management Console. This console provides a web-based interface that allows you to manage and configure your AWS resources. Take some time to explore the console and familiarize yourself with its layouts and services. Remember that most services provided are paid services, so you’ll want to clean up any resources you create if they’re no longer needed.

Learn the Basics

To get the most out of AWS, it’s essential to understand core concepts such as:

Regions: AWS divides its infrastructure into regions. There are multiple regions across the globe. When designing your infrastructure, consider where your customers are located and plan to deploy to regions near your customers for the best network performance. For example, if you have a large number of customers on the East cost of the United States, consider deploying your infrastructure to the US East region.
Availability Zones: AWS infrastructure is further divided into availability zones. These provide redundance in case fail-over is required. For example, if you are building a highly availability web service, you may consider deploying to 2 or more availability zones. This allows your service to remain available in case a single data center becomes unavailable.
Permissions and Identity Management: Since all of your infrastructure is available in the cloud, it’s important to understand how permissions and security is managed in AWS. Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a service that provides flexible security configurations, allowing you to easily manage who or what can access your applications and their data.

Access Documentation and Tutorials

AWS provides extensive documentation and tutorials to help you get started with various services. Check out the AWS Documentation for a comprehensive list of resources and in-depth guidance.

Experiment with AWS Services

AWS offers a Free Tier, designed to allow users to experiment with many AWS services without incurring charges. Take advantage of this 12-month period to gain hands-on experience and build your skills. You can follow the tutorials on freecodetutorials.com to get started.