AWS Fundamentals

Deploy real applications on AWS using core cloud services and modern architecture patterns

Learn AWS from a developer's perspective. Each lesson introduces a service when it solves a concrete problem, building toward a fully deployed 3-tier application using infrastructure as code.

What You'll Master

🔐
Identity & Security

IAM, roles, policies, and least-privilege access patterns

⚡
Serverless & Compute

Lambda, EC2, ECS Fargate, and API Gateway

🗄️
Data & Storage

S3, RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, and when to use each

🏗️
Infrastructure as Code

AWS CDK with Python: deploy entire stacks from code

📡
Networking & Messaging

VPC design, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, and event-driven architecture

Why Learn AWS?

AWS powers over a third of the internet and is the platform of choice for startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Knowing how to deploy, secure, and scale applications on AWS is one of the highest-leverage skills a developer can have. This course takes a practical, code-first approach: every service is introduced in context, with real CLI commands, Python CDK examples, and architecture diagrams showing how pieces connect.

Start Learning: Cloud & AWS Fundamentals
Build your foundation with cloud concepts and the AWS global infrastructure!
Prerequisites
  • Comfortable with the Linux command line
  • Basic Python knowledge (functions, dicts, modules)
  • Understand HTTP request/response fundamentals
  • An AWS account (free tier is sufficient for all lessons)
Interactive Architecture Map

All 57 AWS services as an interactive graph - pan, zoom, and explore connections

Course Index

  1. Cloud & AWS Fundamentals
    Cloud models, global infrastructure, shared responsibility, AWS CLI
  2. IAM: Identity & Access
    Users, groups, roles, policies, MFA, and least-privilege principle
  3. The Well-Architected Framework
    Six pillars for designing reliable, secure, and cost-efficient systems
  4. Compute with EC2
    Instance types, AMIs, security groups, Auto Scaling Groups
  5. Simple Storage Service (S3)
    Buckets, versioning, lifecycle policies, presigned URLs, static hosting
  6. Networking & VPC
    Subnets, route tables, IGW, NAT Gateway, Security Groups vs NACLs
  7. Managed Databases
    RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, and when to use each
  8. Monitoring & Observability
    CloudWatch metrics, logs, Insights queries, anomaly detection, Contributor Insights, CloudTrail, and X-Ray
  9. Serverless with Lambda
    Execution model, triggers, cold starts, Layers, and Python handlers
  10. API Gateway
    REST vs HTTP APIs, Lambda integration, JWT auth, CORS, stages
  11. Messaging: SQS, SNS & EventBridge
    Queues, topics, fan-out patterns, DLQs, and event-driven design
  12. Containers & Batch Compute: ECS, EKS & AWS Batch
    ECR, task definitions, Fargate vs EC2, Amazon EKS managed Kubernetes, and AWS Batch for large-scale batch jobs
  13. Infrastructure as Code with CDK
    App, Stack, Construct hierarchy, L1/L2/L3, deploy with Python CDK
  14. CI/CD on AWS
    CodePipeline, CodeBuild, GitHub Actions with OIDC, no long-lived keys
  15. Cost Optimization & Billing
    Pricing models, Cost Explorer, Budgets, Reserved vs Spot vs Savings Plans
  16. Step Functions
    Visual state machines for multi-service orchestration, parallel fan-out, and human approval workflows
  17. Kinesis Family
    Real-time data streaming, near-real-time archival, and windowed aggregation with Lambda tumbling windows
  18. Big Data & Analytics
    Glue Data Catalog & Crawlers, Athena, Redshift, EMR, and QuickSight for querying and warehousing data at scale
  19. DNS, Certificates & CDN
    Route 53 hosted zones & alias records, ACM certificates, CloudFront distributions, and the WAF/Shield/Lambda@Edge ecosystem
  20. Hybrid Networking & Connectivity
    Transit Gateway, VPC Endpoints & PrivateLink, Site-to-Site VPN, and Direct Connect for hybrid environments
  21. On-Premises Workloads & Migration to AWS
    AWS Outposts, the seven Rs of migration, Migration Hub & Discovery Service, Application/Database Migration Service, DataSync, Transfer Family, and the Snow Family
  22. Encryption & Secrets Management
    AWS KMS, SSM Parameter Store, and Secrets Manager: keys, SecureString, and automatic credential rotation
  23. Security Assessment & Threat Detection
    Amazon GuardDuty for threat detection, Detective for investigation, Inspector for CVE scanning, and Macie for sensitive data discovery
  24. Block & File Storage (EBS, EFS, and FSx)
    EBS volume types and snapshots, EFS shared NFS filesystem, FSx for Windows, Lustre, ONTAP, and OpenZFS, and when to use each vs S3
  25. Capstone: Deploy a 3-Tier AppIn Progress
    Combine VPC, Lambda, RDS, CloudFront, and CDK into a working deployment

Can We Count on Your Support?

All information and resources provided here are and will remain completely free, there are no premium fees or hidden costs, now or in the future. If you find our materials useful or feel they’ve helped your learning or professional journey, please consider supporting us:

Your encouragement helps us keep the content open and accessible for everyone!