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AWS Prerequisites

Before starting the AWS CloudOps course, you should understand these core concepts.

AWS Global Infrastructure

Regions

A region is a geographic area with multiple data centers:

  • Examples: us-east-1 (Virginia), eu-west-1 (Ireland), ap-southeast-1 (Singapore)
  • Choose based on: Where your users are, compliance requirements, cost
  • Each region is isolated: Failures in one region don't affect others

Availability Zones (AZs)

Availability zones are separate data centers within a region:

  • Purpose: Protect against data center failures
  • Naming: us-east-1a, us-east-1b, us-east-1c
  • Best practice: Spread your applications across multiple AZs
  • Each region has: At least 2 AZs, usually 3-6

Edge Locations

These are content delivery points around the world:

  • Purpose: Deliver content faster to users
  • Service: Primarily used by CloudFront (AWS's CDN)
  • Scale: 400+ locations globally

Essential AWS Services

You don’t need to master these services yet, but it’s good to know what they do. We’ll use them in hands-on labs later, and sometimes you’ll see them before their full chapter. Just get familiar with their names and what they’re for.

Compute Services

  • EC2: Virtual servers (like renting a computer in the cloud)
  • Lambda: Run code without managing servers
  • Auto Scaling: Automatically add/remove servers based on demand

Storage Services

  • S3: Store files and data (like Dropbox but for applications)
  • EBS: Hard drives that attach to EC2 instances
  • EFS: Shared file storage that multiple servers can access

Networking Services

  • VPC: Your private network in AWS (like your own data center)
  • Route 53: Domain name system (DNS) for websites
  • CloudFront: Content delivery network to speed up websites

Database Services

  • RDS: Managed SQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.)
  • DynamoDB: Fast NoSQL database for web applications
  • ElastiCache: In-memory caching for better performance

Security & Identity

  • IAM: Control who can access what in your AWS account
  • KMS: Manage encryption keys
  • CloudTrail: Track who did what in your AWS account

Core AWS Concepts

Shared Responsibility Model

AWS and you share security responsibilities:

  • AWS handles: Physical security, infrastructure, some managed services
  • You handle: Your data, operating systems, applications, network settings
  • Think of it like: AWS secures the building, you secure your apartment

IAM (Identity and Access Management)

This is crucial for security:

  • Users: Individual people or applications
  • Groups: Collections of users with similar permissions
  • Roles: Temporary permissions for AWS services
  • Policies: Documents that define what actions are allowed
  • Golden rule: Give the minimum permissions needed (principle of least privilege)

Free Tier

AWS offers free usage for learning:

  • Always free: Some services have permanent free limits
  • 12 months free: New accounts get extra free usage for a year
  • Trials: Short-term free access to premium services
  • Important: Set up billing alerts to avoid surprises

Networking Fundamentals

IP Addresses and Subnets

Basic networking concepts you'll encounter:

  • Private IP ranges: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16
  • CIDR notation: 10.0.0.0/16 means about 65,000 IP addresses
  • Public vs private: Public IPs can reach the internet, private cannot
  • Subnets: Smaller networks within your main network

Security Groups vs NACLs

Two types of firewalls in AWS:

  • Security Groups: Virtual firewalls attached to individual resources
  • NACLs: Network firewalls attached to subnets
  • Key difference: Security groups remember connections, NACLs don't

Cost Management Basics

Pricing Models

AWS offers different ways to pay:

  • On-demand: Pay by the hour/second (most expensive, most flexible)
  • Reserved: Commit to 1-3 years, get big discounts
  • Spot: Bid on unused capacity (cheapest, can be interrupted)

Monitoring Costs

Essential tools to avoid bill shock:

  • Billing Dashboard: See current costs
  • Budgets: Set spending alerts
  • Cost Explorer: Understand where money goes
  • Free tier monitoring: Track free tier usage

Common Free Tier Limits

Know these to stay within free usage:

  • EC2: 750 hours/month of t2.micro or t3.micro instances
  • S3: 5 GB storage, 20,000 GET requests
  • CloudWatch: 10 custom metrics
  • RDS: 750 hours/month of db.t2.micro instances

AWS Management Tools

AWS Management Console

The web interface for AWS:

  • Good for: Learning, one-off tasks, visual monitoring
  • Not great for: Repetitive tasks, automation

AWS CLI

Command line access to AWS:

  • Required for: This course's hands-on labs
  • Good for: Automation, scripting, advanced users
  • Installation: Covered in the Environment Setup guide

Ready for the next step? Continue to Environment Setup to configure your development environment.