Here’s an overview of the content typically covered in AWS (Amazon Web Services) courses, aimed at learners who want to understand how to use AWS cloud services for building, deploying, and managing applications. These courses range from beginner to advanced levels, focusing on core AWS services, cloud architecture, and best practices.
1. Introduction to AWS and Cloud Computing
Key Topics:
- What is AWS?: Overview of AWS and its services, history, and how AWS has become the dominant cloud computing platform.
- Cloud Computing Concepts: Introduction to cloud computing models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), types of cloud (public, private, hybrid), and the benefits of using cloud services.
- AWS Global Infrastructure: Understanding AWS’s global architecture, including regions, availability zones, edge locations, and data centers.
- AWS Management Console and CLI: Introduction to navigating the AWS Management Console and using the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) to interact with AWS resources.
- Billing and Pricing Models: Overview of AWS pricing models—on-demand, reserved, and spot instances—along with the AWS Free Tier and cost estimation tools.
2. Compute Services in AWS
Key Topics:
- Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): Introduction to EC2, launching instances, choosing instance types, and configuring security groups.
- EC2 Auto Scaling: Understanding auto-scaling groups, scaling policies, and automatically adjusting capacity based on demand.
- Elastic Load Balancing (ELB): Overview of ELB for distributing incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances for improved fault tolerance and scalability.
- AWS Lambda: Introduction to serverless computing using AWS Lambda, deploying Lambda functions, and integrating with other AWS services.
- Amazon Lightsail: A simplified version of EC2, designed for small applications, simple web apps, and lightweight workloads.
3. Storage Services in AWS
Key Topics:
- Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service): Introduction to S3 for object storage, creating and managing buckets, uploading and retrieving files, versioning, and security using bucket policies.
- Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store): Understanding EBS volumes for block-level storage, attaching EBS volumes to EC2 instances, and managing snapshots.
- Amazon Glacier: Using Amazon Glacier for low-cost, long-term archival storage.
- Amazon EFS (Elastic File System): Overview of EFS for scalable file storage that can be accessed concurrently by multiple EC2 instances.
- AWS Storage Gateway: Integrating on-premises applications with cloud storage using AWS Storage Gateway for hybrid cloud scenarios.
4. Networking and Content Delivery
Key Topics:
- Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): Introduction to VPC for creating isolated networks in the cloud, setting up subnets, routing tables, and security groups.
- Elastic IP and Network ACLs: Understanding Elastic IP addresses and how to manage network access control lists (ACLs) for securing VPC.
- Amazon Route 53: Introduction to DNS and domain registration with Route 53, setting up routing policies for domain names.
- AWS Direct Connect: Using Direct Connect to establish a dedicated network connection from your on-premises data center to AWS.
- Amazon CloudFront: Content delivery through CloudFront, AWS’s CDN service, for low-latency and high-performance content distribution globally.
5. Databases in AWS
Key Topics:
- Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service): Understanding RDS for provisioning, managing, and scaling relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.
- Amazon DynamoDB: Overview of DynamoDB for NoSQL databases, including setting up tables, configuring global secondary indexes, and using DynamoDB Streams.
- Amazon Redshift: Introduction to Redshift for scalable data warehousing, querying large datasets, and integrating with BI tools.
- Amazon Aurora: Understanding Aurora, a MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database service with high performance and availability.
- Amazon ElastiCache: Using Redis and Memcached with ElastiCache for in-memory caching to speed up web applications.
6. Security, Identity, and Access Management (IAM)
Key Topics:
- IAM Users, Groups, and Roles: Managing user identities, setting up user groups, and defining roles to control access to AWS resources.
- IAM Policies: Writing and attaching IAM policies to control permissions for users, groups, and roles, and understanding the concept of least privilege.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Enabling MFA for additional security when accessing the AWS console and other resources.
- AWS KMS (Key Management Service): Using KMS to create and manage cryptographic keys for data encryption.
- AWS Shield and WAF (Web Application Firewall): Protecting applications from DDoS attacks and using AWS WAF for custom security rules.
7. Monitoring, Logging, and Cost Management
Key Topics:
- Amazon CloudWatch: Introduction to CloudWatch for monitoring AWS resources, setting alarms, and viewing logs.
- AWS CloudTrail: Tracking user activity and API calls with CloudTrail, enabling auditing and compliance monitoring.
- AWS X-Ray: Debugging and analyzing microservices and serverless applications with AWS X-Ray.
- AWS Cost Explorer and Budgets: Using Cost Explorer to visualize and track AWS spending and creating cost budgets to prevent overages.
- AWS Trusted Advisor: Using AWS Trusted Advisor to get recommendations for optimizing cost, performance, security, and fault tolerance.
8. Automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Key Topics:
- AWS CloudFormation: Introduction to CloudFormation for defining AWS infrastructure using code and managing resources through templates.
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk: Deploying and managing web applications with Elastic Beanstalk using automated deployment and scaling.
- AWS OpsWorks: Using OpsWorks for managing application configurations and deployments with Chef and Puppet.
- AWS CodeDeploy and CodePipeline: Automating application deployment and integrating with CI/CD pipelines to manage software releases.
9. Serverless Computing with AWS Lambda
Key Topics:
- Introduction to Serverless: Understanding serverless architecture and how it benefits scalability, cost-efficiency, and reduced operational overhead.
- AWS Lambda Functions: Creating, testing, and deploying Lambda functions to run code without provisioning servers.
- Event-Driven Architecture: Integrating Lambda with AWS services like S3, DynamoDB, and API Gateway to build event-driven applications.
- API Gateway: Using API Gateway to create RESTful APIs for interacting with Lambda functions and exposing services securely.
- AWS Step Functions: Orchestrating Lambda functions into workflows using AWS Step Functions for complex, multi-step processes.
10. Advanced AWS Topics
Key Topics:
- AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS): Running containerized applications on Kubernetes in AWS using EKS.
- Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): Managing Docker containers and deploying containerized applications on ECS.
- AWS Fargate: Serverless compute for containers with Fargate, eliminating the need to manage infrastructure for containerized workloads.
- High Availability and Disaster Recovery: Designing high-availability architectures and implementing disaster recovery plans in AWS.
- AWS Machine Learning and AI: Introduction to AWS AI and ML services like SageMaker, Rekognition, Comprehend, and Lex.
10. Advanced AWS Topics
Key Topics:
- AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS): Running containerized applications on Kubernetes in AWS using EKS.
- Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): Managing Docker containers and deploying containerized applications on ECS.
- AWS Fargate: Serverless compute for containers with Fargate, eliminating the need to manage infrastructure for containerized workloads.
- High Availability and Disaster Recovery: Designing high-availability architectures and implementing disaster recovery plans in AWS.
- AWS Machine Learning and AI: Introduction to AWS AI and ML services like SageMaker, Rekognition, Comprehend, and Lex.
