Are you interested in getting started with AWS? You have come to the right place. This article will help to unravel answers to the questions you might have so you can emerge as an AWS expert.

Amazon Website Services (AWS) is the leading cloud solution provider. However, mastering it is no simple task. If you’re new to it, you’ll feel lost and confused about where to start. But that’s going to change today. Here are ten tips to help you kick-start your learning journey on Amazon Website Services.

1. Understand the Basics

Before diving into AWS, you need to understand the basics of cloud computing. Knoma is a great place to start. Here you can select several tech courses and cloud courses to boot your knowledge.

A course in cloud computing will help you understand how remote virtual on-demand resources offering Storage, Network, and Compute services can get deployed rapidly at scale. Compute, Database, Storage, and Network are the building blocks of AWS.

You can also read Amazon’s white paper “Overview of Amazon Web Services” to gain a better understanding of cloud computing, particularly the elements implemented by Amazon Web Services.

Additionally, familiarise yourself with Software-as-a-Service (Saas), Platform as a Service (Paas), and Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas).

• SaaS: These are end-user applications that get delivered over the web, including Microsoft’s Office 365, Google’s Docs, etc.
• PaaS: Consists of a set of tools and services that make coding and deploying SaaS applications much easier and efficient.
• IaaS: It’s the hardware and software responsible for running it all. It consists of networks, operating systems, servers, etc.

These are the most popular cloud computing service models. However, don’t get caught too much in these.

Besides that, try to understand the essential cloud concepts such as disaster recovery, scalability, and high availability. These concepts make cloud computing an effective service.

2. AWS Training

To better understand AWS, visit AWS’s official website. The AWS course on the site offers beginners a good understanding of best practices in creating an AWS cloud solution. It comprises instructional videos that offer a brief introduction to the working of the service and the labs to provide learners with self-paced practice.

Beginners can also check out this AWS whitepaper published by Amazon, AWS Well-Architected Framework. As a result, they can build their content knowledge. Amazon also offers in-person classes and workshops online in various locations around the world. Also, you can check Knoma courses related to AWS.

3. Get Started with AWS Free Tier

Amazon Website Service has a Free Tier for many of its services. AWS Free Tier allows you to access certain services for one year for free following your registration date.

During the first year, newbies can launch a virtual machine for 750 hours every month and store up to 5 GB on the object store at no cost. Besides that, they can invoke the Lambda function many times and store up to 25 GB in a NoSQL database.

Take advantage of the Free Tier to understand how the various services work as you get started.

4. Familiarise Yourself with Core AWS Services

Most AWS services are designed around a set of core services. I bet you're asking yourself how other services can be built on other ones. Don't worry! It's not that complicated. Just don't get too caught up on the specifics of the core services, like how they work or abbreviations.

Once you learn how different services interact with core services, you’ll have a deeper understanding of AWS. Most AWS services are like periphery services that complement and build on the others. If you spend too much time and effort trying to understand periphery services, you will have a much slower and frustrating time learning Amazon Website Service.

The core AWS services include:

• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Also, learn about CloudWatch, Route 53, CloudFormation, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). AWS documentation and Knoma courses can help you dive more into core AWS courses as you improve your tech skills.

5. Get Your IAM House in Order

AWS operates on a shared responsibility model, meaning it handles cloud security while you handle your stuff on the cloud. Therefore, there's a need to familiarise yourself with Amazon Identity and Access Management services (IAM). This service allows you to set up several security-related measures we won't dive into here.

Basically, IAM is how users manage permission and access in AWS. Also, it’s how users allow machines to talk with each other. Ensure this is the first thing you do to make sure everything you create stays safe and secured.

6. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for Root Account

Your root account has god access to everything. So if it gets compromised, the hacker can do pretty everything. You can counteract this problem by enabling MFA for the root user account. When enabled, you or an attacker cannot access the account without having another physical device.

So even if the attacker cracks your password, he will still need your phone or another device to sign in to your root account.

7. Choose an Appropriate Location

AWS has numerous data centres across the world. They are grouped according to regions. Every region operates its own service model. Before using Amazon Website Service, you need to select a data center based on the following factors.

• Costs: Various data centres come with varying price points.
• Latency: Find a data center that’s closed to your customer base.
• Availability of services: Do the center services match your user's needs?

8. Billing Alarm

AWS avails its paid services via the pay-as-you-go model. Since it’s not like a fixed monthly subscription, it’s quite easy to lose track of your usage. Therefore, there’s a need to establish a billing alarm. As a result, you can avoid going out of the budget. A billing alarm will allow users to track if usage surpasses a specific threshold so they can act accordingly.

9. Going Social

Once you have a solid knowledge of AWS, connect with your colleagues and peers to share ideas and build a bigger network. Individuals living close to an Amazon User Group should take part in their seminars, activities, and events.

You can also join online forums and interact with other AWS experts from all over the world. AWS Discussion Forums boasting thousands of users and threads will provide you with an enormous amount of information and knowledge on various topics to help you in your upskilling venture.

10. Automation Is Your Ultimate Goal

Aim for automation via AWS’s API, which allows you to automate every section of your cloud infrastructure. It seizes every opportunity from creating the entire networking infrastructure to publishing, monitoring, and maintaining web sockets. API greatly reduces the admin efforts and allows them to maximise the quality and condition of their infrastructure.

If you want to maximise AWS fully, aim for automation. You can achieve that through AWS CloudFormation.

Conclusion

If you stick to these ten tips, you'll get a better understanding of AWS, and you won't find yourself in the midst of uncertainty anymore. We hope this information will keep you busy for some time to come as you pursue a path to being an AWS expert.

Thank you for stopping by, and best of luck!