Learn the fundamentals of Amazon Web Services and understand how cloud computing, compute, storage, networking, security, databases, and monitoring work together.
AWS Learning Path
Understand AWS Global Infrastructure
Launch Cloud Compute Resources
Store Data with Amazon S3
Secure Access with IAM
Build Networking with Amazon VPC
Introduction
Amazon Web Services, commonly known as AWS, is a cloud computing platform that provides infrastructure and technology services over the internet.
Instead of purchasing and operating all physical servers, networking equipment, and storage infrastructure yourself, cloud services allow you to use computing resources when they are needed.
AWS includes services for computing, storage, databases, networking, security, monitoring, analytics, automation, and many other technology requirements.
Core Concepts
These concepts provide a foundation for understanding how AWS cloud infrastructure and services work.
AWS operates cloud infrastructure across geographic regions and Availability Zones, allowing organizations to deploy applications closer to users and design highly available systems.
Key Topics
Amazon EC2 provides virtual servers in the cloud. You can select instance types based on CPU, memory, storage, networking, and application requirements.
Key Topics
Amazon S3 provides object storage for files, backups, application assets, logs, and other data.
Key Topics
AWS Identity and Access Management helps control who can access AWS resources and what actions they are allowed to perform.
Key Topics
AWS Global Infrastructure
AWS infrastructure is organized into geographic Regions. Each Region contains multiple Availability Zones that can be used to design applications for availability and resilience.
Understanding Regions and Availability Zones is important because the location and architecture of your cloud resources can affect availability, latency, service selection, and application design.
Simplified AWS Architecture
Internet
│
▼
┌───────────────┐
│ AWS Region │
└───────────────┘
│
├───────────────┐
▼ ▼
Availability Availability
Zone A Zone B
│ │
▼ ▼
┌────────┐ ┌────────┐
│ EC2 │ │ EC2 │
└────────┘ └────────┘
│ │
└───────┬───────┘
▼
Application
│
▼
Amazon S3Core AWS Services
AWS provides many services, but beginners can start by understanding the core building blocks for compute, storage, networking, identity, databases, and monitoring.
Virtual servers that can run applications, services, development environments, and workloads in the cloud.
Object storage for application data, files, backups, logs, static content, and other digital assets.
A virtual network environment where you can configure IP ranges, subnets, routing, gateways, and network controls.
Identity and access management capabilities used to define permissions and control access to AWS resources.
A managed relational database service that helps simplify database administration and operations.
Monitoring capabilities for collecting metrics, logs, and operational information from AWS resources and applications.
Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2 allows you to launch virtual servers, known as instances, for running applications and workloads.
When launching an instance, you typically select an operating system image, choose compute resources, configure networking, define security rules, and attach storage as required.
Amazon S3
Amazon S3 is an object storage service. Data is stored as objects inside containers called buckets.
S3 can be used for many workloads, including backups, application files, static website assets, logs, media files, and other types of data.
AWS IAM
AWS Identity and Access Management helps control authentication and authorization for AWS resources.
Permissions can be defined through policies, while roles can provide temporary permissions for users, applications, and AWS services depending on the architecture.
One important security principle is least privilege, which means granting only the permissions required for a particular task.
Simplified IAM Policy Example
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"s3:GetObject"
],
"Resource": [
"arn:aws:s3:::example-bucket/*"
]
}
]
}AWS Networking
Amazon VPC provides a virtual networking environment where cloud resources can communicate according to the networking and security configuration you define.
A logically isolated virtual network where AWS resources can be deployed.
Network segments used to organize resources within a VPC.
Rules that determine how network traffic moves between destinations.
A component that enables communication between a VPC and the internet when configured appropriately.
Virtual firewall controls that manage allowed inbound and outbound traffic for supported resources.
Network-level controls that can be used to define traffic rules for subnets.
AWS CLI Examples
# Configure AWS CLI aws configure # List S3 buckets aws s3 ls # List EC2 instances aws ec2 describe-instances # Display configured identity aws sts get-caller-identity
AWS Command Line
The AWS Command Line Interface allows you to interact with AWS services using commands and scripts.
Command-line tools are commonly used for automation, troubleshooting, development workflows, and infrastructure management.
What You Will Learn
Understand the fundamental concepts behind cloud computing and how AWS infrastructure is organized.
Learn how common cloud services work together to support applications and infrastructure.
Understand identity, permissions, access control, and the importance of protecting cloud resources.
Begin developing the skills needed to design scalable, reliable, and well-organized cloud systems.
Learning Path
Start with the fundamentals, learn the major infrastructure services, and gradually build practical cloud projects.
Create and configure an AWS account, then understand the security responsibilities associated with account access.
Learn how IAM identities, policies, roles, and least-privilege access can be used to control AWS permissions.
Start with fundamental services such as EC2, S3, IAM, VPC, and monitoring services.
Deploy a simple cloud workload and learn how compute, networking, storage, and security components work together.
Understand how logs, metrics, alerts, and monitoring help maintain cloud workloads.
Review running resources and learn the importance of removing unused infrastructure and planning workloads efficiently.
Continue Learning
Understand the core infrastructure components used in cloud environments.
🌐Learn networking concepts including virtual networks, subnets, routing, and security.
🔐Explore important cloud security concepts, access management, and infrastructure protection.
Next Step
You now have a foundation for understanding AWS cloud computing. Continue learning the core AWS services and start building practical cloud infrastructure projects.