AWS Cloud Practitioner Basics
A structured beginner course covering AWS cloud concepts, core services, security, and billing.
What you will learn
- Explain core cloud computing concepts
- Identify key AWS services and their use cases
- Describe the AWS shared responsibility model
- Understand AWS pricing and basic cost management
Before you start
- No prior AWS experience required
- Basic computer and internet familiarity
- A free AWS account is useful but optional
Lesson 1 Cloud Computing and AWS Global Infrastructure
Cloud computing delivers compute, storage, and networking resources on demand over the internet. AWS uses Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations to provide global reach, high availability, and lower latency.
A Region is a geographic area with multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone contains isolated data centers with independent power, cooling, and networking.
AWS pricing is often pay-as-you-go, and customers can scale resources up or down as demand changes. Elasticity and economies of scale are central cloud benefits.
Six advantages drill: remember the core AWS value proposition: trade capital expense for variable expense, benefit from massive economies of scale, stop guessing capacity, increase speed and agility, stop spending money on data centers, and go global in minutes.
Example
An application deployed in two Availability Zones can continue serving traffic if one zone is unavailable. Choosing a Region close to users reduces network distance and improves response time.
Worked example: A startup needs servers only during peak season.
On-demand instances let them scale up and down, turning fixed data center costs into variable usage costs.
Lesson 2 Core Compute, Storage, and Database Services
Amazon EC2 provides resizable virtual servers. AWS Lambda runs code without managing servers, while AWS Fargate runs containers without provisioning hosts.
For storage, Amazon S3 stores objects, Amazon EBS provides durable block storage for EC2, and Amazon EFS provides a managed file system.
For databases, Amazon RDS manages relational databases, DynamoDB is a serverless NoSQL database, and ElastiCache provides in-memory caching.
Service mapping: match the workload to the service: EC2 for resizable compute, Lambda for event-driven code, S3 for object storage, EBS for block storage attached to EC2, RDS for managed relational databases, and DynamoDB for NoSQL at scale.
Example
A small API can use AWS Lambda for serverless code, DynamoDB for data, and Amazon S3 for static images, avoiding the need to manage servers or database software.
Worked example: A photo-sharing app needs to store millions of images.
Amazon S3 stores objects and scales automatically; metadata can live in DynamoDB.
Lesson 3 Networking and Content Delivery
Amazon VPC creates an isolated virtual network where customers control IP addresses, subnets, and routing. Route 53 provides scalable DNS, while CloudFront caches content at edge locations.
Elastic Load Balancing distributes traffic across multiple targets, and EC2 Auto Scaling adjusts capacity based on demand. API Gateway creates and manages REST and HTTP APIs.
Traffic flow: Route 53 resolves the domain to an IP, CloudFront caches content near users, Elastic Load Balancing distributes requests to healthy targets, and Auto Scaling adjusts capacity. Draw this flow when you review networking questions.
Example
A web application can use an Application Load Balancer to send traffic to EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones and CloudFront to serve cached images close to users.
Worked example: Users in Asia open a website hosted in us-east-1.
CloudFront serves cached content from an edge location, reducing latency without changing the origin server.
Lesson 4 Security and the Shared Responsibility Model
AWS is responsible for security of the cloud, including physical infrastructure and the host systems. Customers are responsible for security in the cloud, such as their operating systems, data, and permissions.
IAM controls identities and permissions. Shield and WAF help protect applications from DDoS and malicious traffic, GuardDuty detects threats, and KMS manages encryption keys.
Enable multi-factor authentication and follow the principle of least privilege.
IAM best practices: create individual users, grant the least privilege needed, use groups for permissions, enable MFA, and rotate credentials. Remember that the customer manages IAM, data, and guest operating systems under the shared responsibility model.
Example
For an EC2 instance, AWS patches the physical host, while the customer patches the guest operating system and secures applications and credentials.
Worked example: An intern only needs read access to one S3 bucket.
Create a group with a read-only policy for that bucket and add the intern to the group, following least privilege.
Lesson 5 Billing, Pricing, and Cost Management
On-Demand pricing is flexible for short-term workloads, while Reserved Instances and Savings Plans provide discounts for committed use. Spot Instances offer the largest discounts for interruption-tolerant workloads.
Use AWS Pricing Calculator to estimate costs, Cost Explorer to visualize spending, and Budgets to receive alerts when spending exceeds limits.
Trusted Advisor recommends cost optimization, security, and performance improvements.
Cost control loop: estimate with Pricing Calculator, track spending with Cost Explorer, set alerts with Budgets, and review recommendations from Trusted Advisor. Choose the pricing model that matches the workload: on-demand for variable work, Reserved or Savings Plans for steady work, Spot for fault-tolerant work.
Example
A steady production database may benefit from Reserved Instances, while an unpredictable development environment is often more cost-effective with On-Demand instances.
Worked example: A nightly batch job can stop and restart without risk.
Spot Instances offer the largest discount for this interruption-tolerant workload.