Kick-Start Your AWS Cloud Journey: A Beginner’s Guide

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has become synonymous with cloud computing, and still holds the largest market share in the cloud infrastructure market. With a wide range of services, AWS is aimed at helping businesses to scale, innovate, and operate more efficiently.

But with such a powerful technology —endlessly configurable and highly adaptable— starting out on your AWS journey can feel a bit daunting.

Let’s dive in to walk through the basics of AWS solutions and how you can get started building your first AWS environment, to help you kick-start your cloud computing education.

What is AWS?

AWS has grown into the leading cloud services provider, offering over 200 fully-featured services from its global data centres. It provides powerful infrastructure that supports a variety of use cases, from start-ups to large enterprises.

With AWS, businesses can easily scale based on demand, benefit from world-class security standards, and harness a global footprint with reduced latency and improved performance when deploying applications. At its core, AWS empowers companies to move faster, be agile and boost innovation.

Key benefits of using AWS

While there are a number of cloud providers in play, AWS firmly sits as a market leader due to a few value propositions that allow teams to get more from their cloud infrastructure:

• It’s super scalable: AWS makes it easy to scale your solution up or down based on the demands of the business.
• It’s easy to manage cloud costs: With pay-as-you-go pricing, teams only pay for what they use —which makes cost optimisation super simple.
• It’s highly secure and great for compliance: AWS features world-class security standards, meaning companies can rest assured they’re meeting compliance requirements.

How to get started — Setting up your AWS account

Before you get started with AWS, you’ll need to set up an account. There are a couple of easy steps involved:

1. Visit the AWS website and click on “Create an AWS Account.”
2. Enter your email address and set a password.
3. Provide your billing information.
4. Verify your identity, usually via phone.
5. Select a support plan (basic support is free!)

Once your account is set up, you can log in to the AWS Management Console using your new account credentials and get familiar with the dashboard and navigation options. From there, it’s time to get into the good stuff!

Essential AWS compute services for beginners

AWS offers a variety of core services that are essential for beginners to understand:

• EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): Allows you to launch virtual servers in the cloud.
• S3 (Simple Storage Service): Enables you to store and manage files in the cloud.
• RDS (Relational Database Service): Makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud.
• IAM (Identity and Access Management): Helps you securely control access to AWS services and resources.

A solid understanding of these core principles and services is a strong foundation for your AWS journey. These services not only cover the basic needs of computing, storage, and database management but also ensure that your cloud environment is secure —and well-optimised.

AWS Virtual Private Cloud

One of the key benefits of using AWS is the ability to establish a VPC (Virtual Private Cloud). A VPC allows you to logically isolate your resources in the cloud —from here, you can create and configure subnets, route tables, and gateways to give yourself greater control, and increase the security of the environment.

Network ACLs (Access Control Lists) help to manage inbound and outbound traffic to your VPC instances and help your infrastructure to run more efficiently.

Monitoring and managing your AWS environment

Implementing best practices for security and optimisation is critical. Consider things like multi-factor authentication (MFA) for your AWS account, and regularly review and rotate IAM credentials.

It’s also critical to choose the right instance types and storage options for your needs, to help with cost and resource optimisation. You can also look into tools like auto-scaling to automatically adjust resources based on demand.

Want to supercharge your learning? Training is your best friend!

If this all still sounds a little overwhelming, you’re definitely not alone. The best way to increase your confidence and skill set in the world of AWS is to invest in some quality training.

Our fundamental level one-day courses like AWS Technical Essentials is designed to give you a solid foundation to build your AWS knowledge. It will cover basic terminology, how to navigate the AWS management console, and outline some fundamental use-cases for the compute services like networking, EC2, Lambda and ECS mentioned above.

On top of that, we take you through the basics of best-practice cloud management. From cost optimisation and security to UAM and monitoring services, you’ll have access to top instructors in the sector to help you get a handle on how to best run and manage your AWS solution.

Choose your AWS Learning Path

If you’re wanting a little more structure to help you find your feet, we’ve got learning paths that can take you from novice to pro. If you’re just starting out, take a look at the Cloud Practitioner learning path. Once you’ve got the basics covered, you can dive deeper into our Migrating, Security or Technical Essentials learning paths to take your learning journey further.

If you’re just starting to dip your toe in the water of cloud computing, download this free guide to AWS training at Bespoke or explore our learning paths in more detail.

Bespoke is here to help

Bespoke can help you find the right learning path for you, based on your current knowledge and your career goals. From fundamentals to specialities and training for certifications, we’ve got courses to support your learning with expert-led virtual training.

With world-class AWS certified instructors and hands-on labs, this training is built to enhance your understanding of AWS services.

Ready to take your AWS skills to the next level? Bespoke offers comprehensive AWS training programs designed to empower you with the knowledge and skills needed to excel. Get in touch with our team, or browse our training directory to kick-start your AWS learning journey today!