AWS
Learn AWS by building. Three hands-on projects take you from your first serverless website to networks, servers and containers. New to DevOps? Do the Foundations roadmap first.
Roadmap
Work through these in order. Each step builds on the last.
1Get ready
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Set up AWS safely
Create your account, turn on MFA, make an admin user and set a budget alert, so there are no surprise bills.
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Core AWS services
IAM, S3, EC2 and VPC. Just enough to know what each one is for and how they fit together.
2Serverless
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Build a serverless website
Host your resume on S3 and CloudFront with your own domain, then add a visitor counter with Lambda, DynamoDB and API Gateway.
Project 01: The Cloud Resume Challenge on AWS The Cloud Resume Challenge Hosting a static website on S3 What is AWS Lambda?
3VPC & EC2
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Design your own network
Public and private subnets, route tables, internet and NAT gateways, and security groups. How traffic moves inside AWS.
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Run a web app on EC2
Put a web app on EC2 instances in private subnets, behind a load balancer that scales when traffic grows.
Project 02: Run a web app on EC2 in your own VPC Amazon EC2 documentation
4Containers
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Store container images in ECR
Push your Docker images to AWS's private registry, ready to run.
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Run containers on ECS Fargate
Run your containerised app on Fargate with no servers to manage, behind a load balancer with logs in CloudWatch.
Project 03: Run a containerised app on ECS Fargate What is Amazon ECS?
5Operate
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Monitor with CloudWatch
Metrics, logs, dashboards and alarms across your projects, so you know when something needs attention.
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Optional: get certified
Cloud Practitioner is a gentle first AWS exam. Solutions Architect Associate is the one employers ask for most, and these projects cover a lot of it.
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Projects
- Project 01
The Cloud Resume Challenge on AWS
Put your resume online as a real AWS website, add a live visitor counter, then rebuild and deploy it all with code. Your first cloud portfolio project.
- Project 02
Run a web app on EC2 in your own VPC
Build your own network on AWS, run a web app on EC2 in private subnets, and put it behind a load balancer that scales with traffic.
- Project 03
Run a containerised app on ECS Fargate
Package an app with Docker, push it to ECR, and run it on ECS Fargate behind a load balancer, with no servers to manage.
Resources
Free
- AWS Free Tier
What you can use for free, and for how long. Check it before you create anything.
- AWS Budgets guide
How to set a budget and get an email before you spend more than you planned.
- AWS Skill Builder
AWS's own training site. Many beginner courses are free.
- The Cloud Resume Challenge
The original challenge by Forrest Brazeal. Project 01 is a beginner walkthrough of it on AWS.
- Hosting a static website on S3
The official guide for part 1 of Project 01.
- Terraform: Get started with AWS
Official hands-on tutorial. Build, change and destroy AWS resources with code.
- GitHub Actions quickstart
Official guide to your first workflow: run jobs automatically on every push.
- What is Amazon CloudWatch?
AWS's built-in monitoring: metrics, logs, dashboards and alarms.
- What is AWS Lambda?
Run code without servers. Used for the visitor counter in Project 01.
- What is Amazon VPC?
Subnets, route tables and gateways: the networking behind Project 02.
- Amazon EC2 documentation
Virtual servers on AWS: instances, AMIs, user data and Auto Scaling.
- What is Amazon ECR?
AWS's private registry for your Docker images.
- What is Amazon ECS?
Run containers on AWS. Project 03 uses it with Fargate.
- Using secrets in GitHub Actions
Store keys and tokens safely so your workflows can deploy without exposing them.
Paid
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
The beginner AWS exam. Good for proving you know the basics.
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
The AWS certification employers ask for most. Take it after a few projects.