Product overview

• EC2: VM as a service:
  • autoscaling (mem/cpu metrics based instance start/stop)
  • EBS (persistent storage)
  • Images (how to create your own software stack)
  • ELB (managed Load Balancer)
  • Virtual Networks:
    • subnets
    • reserved IP
    • firewall rules
• Management:
  • CloudTrail (audit of all users AWS usage)
  • CloudWatch (metrics/log collection)
  • CloudFormation (aws specific „terraform”)
• LightSail: preconfigured stacks: LAMP, Nginx, MEAN and Node.js. Easier to
  manage than pure ec2 instances. – [optional]
• Databases:
  • DynamoDB (amazon’s proprietary schemaless NoSql) written in JAVA, can be self hosted, billed by per request, fully managed. –[optional]
  • RDS (hosted relational db)
    • postgres
    • mariadb (mysql)
    • oracle
    • sql server
  • DocumentDB (hosted mongodb) – [optional]
  • ElastiCache (hosted redis) – [optional]
• Storage options, availability/speed/price:
  • EBS (disk as a service)
    • snapshots
  • S3 (object storage, rest api, industry standard)
  • EFS (nfs as a service)
• Pricing: AWS makes it really complicated:
  • reserved instances (prepay for 1-3 years)
  • spot price (can be 70% cheaper, with some risk)
• IAM
  • Creating Roles, Policies, binding them
  • authentication best practices (no root account, rotate keys, 2fa)
  • Organizing teams
  • Even create sub accounts
• HTTPS: learn how to use Letsencrypt. Not AWS specific, but important to
  know about a free automated was of creating certificates.

Optional:

• Lambda (Serverless): no need to pay for a VM if an app is used only rarely:
  • Wide range of language can be used: javascript/python/java/go …
  • Lot of Infrastructure automation possibility, almost all service can trigger a lambda function
  • CI/CD hook triggers
  • chatops (bot listens on slack, and deploys a VM…)
  • billed by 100ms
  • API Gateway: rest endpoint implemented as Lambda
• Application Integration:
  • SQS: managed queue. Easy glue between apps / services
  • SNS: manages topic/subscription service:
  • system to system communication: triggers: lambda/sqs/http endpoint
  • user notification: email, sms, push notification
• Elastic Beanstalk: dev uploads a bundle (jar/zip) beanstalk will create VM instance/network/ … resources automatically.
• Route53: managed DNS
• Containers:
  • ECS (AWS opinionated docker solution)
  • EKS (managed kubernetes)

Exercices

Webserver – AWS Console

Goal: create a Webserver via the AWS provided browser based GUI.

• setup shortcuts, bookmarks, resource group
• Create Keypairs (ssh)
• start an Ubuntu/Debian instance

Webserver – cli

Goal: Same as previous exercise, but everything from the terminal

• aws sdk installation
• shell scripting basics (functions/variables/loops)

Webserver – Spot Instance

Goal: Learn how to save up to 70% of the cost for dev/qa environments.

Webserver – EBS – snapshot

Goal: learn how to use persistent disks, instead of volatile instance storage.

Create an Image

Goal: Instead of having a word docs describing what to install/configure, create a reusable blueprint.

• start with an „artisan” image (quick and dirty)
• automate it with packer

Instance Templates

Goal: Instead writing word docs about how to start an instance (which region, which instance type, how big the disk, networks, subnetworks …) his is a
prerequisite for the next:

Autoscaling andLoadBalancing

Goal: how to survive Black Friday? Automation which checks cpu/memory load metrics, and scales up/down.

Database management

Goal: Understand the pro/cons (hint: price is the only issue) of maintaining the DB or let AWS manage it.

WebApplication the AWS way

• Static webhosting on S3
• Serverless Web app: Lambda + S3 + managed DB
• Beanstalk
• LightSail

Serverless

Goal: Understand how Lambda fits into both infrastructure glue code/ automation, and also complete applications (rest API)