AWS Beginner to Intermediate: EC2, IAM, ELB, ASG, Route 53

Welcome to the AWS Beginner to Intermediate course, where we explore several key facets of AWS to build and deploy cloud-based infrastructure. This course covers an extensive amount of material and by the end you will be proficient enough with AWS to gain an entry level position in cloud administration.

The curriculum starts off with exploring AWS account registration, billing and multi-factor authentication. We then explore more advanced account security through AWS identity and access management (IAM). IAM is an integral part of AWS that facilitates the management of users, groups, and security policies that control AWS resources. Here, we explore the creation of IAM users with varying degrees of account access. This includes user groups, permission policies, and IAM roles for EC2.

Once students have a firm understanding of IAM, we dive into the backbone of AWS by exploring EC2 instance deployment and configuration. EC2 is a core service of AWS that facilitates the launch of virtual servers (called instances) within the AWS cloud console. We cover how to launch and configure EC2 instances, including choosing the right instance type and setting up security groups to control inbound and outbound traffic. We also explore remote instance administration using PuTTY and Terminal to issue server commands and manage instances from any remote location. Students learn to deploy and assign elastic IP addresses along with the creation of Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to save instance state and quickly launch new instances with replicated configurations.

After completion of the EC2 module, we jump into AWS storage solutions where we explore various storage types including, block, file and object storage. More specifically students learn to harness the power of the Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) and the Amazon Elastic File System (EFS). We demonstrate how to deploy and configure multiple EBS volumes and attach them to existing instances for maximum scalability. Students also learn to design and deploy seamlessly scalable storage systems using EFS. We demonstrate how to mount multiple instances to a single EFS endpoint for centralized access to data files. We complete the module by showcasing the power of EBS snapshots and Amazon Machine Images for efficient instance deployment and backups.

From this point, the course branches into more intermediate concepts by exploring elastic load balancing (ELB), Auto Scaling Groups (ASG), and Route 53. Student will learn to deploy a highly available architecture that auto scales based on real-time traffic workload and instance health checks. Traffic will be routed directly through Amazons Route 53 DNS service, with customized domain names and pre-configured hosted zones.

By the end of this course, you will have a solid understanding of how to use AWS to build and deploy your own cloud-based infrastructure. You will be able to launch and configure EC2 instances, store and manage data in the cloud, and use services like ELB and ASG to scale your infrastructure to meet the needs of your applications.

If you're excited about expanding your knowledge in AWS and the field of cloud computing, hit the enroll button and let's get started.