Skip to content

A beginner’s guide. How to start your adventure with the AWS cloud ??

A beginner's guide. How to start your adventure with the AWS cloud 2022

Many people want to start their adventure with the AWS cloud, but do not know how to do it. I decided to write a guide for beginners who want to get to know the AWS cloud. Nowadays, the problem is not the lack of information, but the amount of information. Too much information can be overwhelming and confusing. If we have too much choice, we don’t know what to choose and often don’t start at all.

In this article, I will try to help people who would like to start their adventure with the AWS cloud. I will present things that I would be interested in if I were to start learning the cloud now. In the article you will also find a list of things that helped me the most in getting to know the AWS cloud.

How to start with AWS?

Movies

Before you start using the AWS cloud, it’s a good idea to learn a bit about it. A good way to get started with AWS is to take the “AWS in 7 days” course, which is available on the udemy platform for FREE. Don’t be confused by the name of the course, because you can finish the course faster, it only depends on the time you spend on it. The course is conducted by Tomasz Stachlewski, who is currently the head of the team of architects at Amazon Web Services for Central and Eastern Europe. Many people rated it very well. In my opinion, it will be perfect at the beginning.

Free Amazon AWS Tutorial – AWS w 7 dni | Udemy

Below I have compiled a list of YouTube channels worth attention not only for beginners:

The last position belongs to a person who knows a lot and from whom you can learn a lot ‘Darko Meszaros’. I really like the way Darko talks about the cloud. Hope you like it too.

If you think that it is worth adding something to this list, let me know in a comment, share your knowledge, let others find out too.

Websites

Some people prefer to read instead of watching movies. On websites, knowledge is usually organized and makes it easier to learn the cloud.

Internet forums and groups

Forums and online groups have the advantage of websites that if you get stuck somewhere, you can ask a question, and a lot of people will be happy to help you. It is important to ask specific questions and provide as much information as possible about the problem, because nobody has a glass ball and reading tea leaves will not. Please read the rules best before asking a question. If you provide too little information, the topic may be unnecessarily long and people may not be willing to help.

Below is a list of a few places that I use myself and where you can meet me:

If you know a place worth recommending, don’t hesitate to share it in the comment.

Paid courses

This is not a sponsored article, so I will not recommend paid beginner courses. There are many platforms where you can find a lot of valuable courses. If you want to spend money that’s cool, but I wouldn’t choose them at the beginning.

It is different if you want to gain more advanced knowledge or if you are preparing for an exam. Then I can recommend something that I used myself and paid for myself.

Virtual training

On the following pages you will find trainings and laboratories that will introduce you to the world of the cloud and show you good practices:

AWS JAM events are a great thing. For example, during the last AWS reinvent, you could have access to AWS account for free and solve prepared tasks. Learn and earn rewards.

Practice

aws cost budget creator

AWS FREE TIER

AWS offers the so-called AWS FREE TIER and a set of free services. In short, AWS offers services that are:

You can read more about it on the AWS website https://aws.amazon.com/free/.

AWS EDUCATE

 Learn, practice, and evaluate cloud skills in real time without creating an Amazon or AWS account.

AWS Educate offers hundreds of hours of free, self-paced online resources designed specifically to help pre-professional learners develop in-demand cloud skills.  It is available globally to students. AWS Educate provides its members with no cost access to learning content and AWS services designed to build knowledge and skills in cloud computing.

Find out more at:

https://aws.amazon.com/education/awseducate/

First steps in the AWS cloud

You can take your first steps in the cloud while watching the course or doing the labs. Once you have a test environment, start just building cloud resources without going into details. At first, do something simple that just works.

In my opinion, it is best to start getting to know the computer cloud from its basic elements. In the cloud, some more complex services consist of basic services. For example, by learning how the network and EC2 work, it will be easier to understand services such as ECS or EKS.

At the beginning, do not get too deep into the details of a particular service, it makes it easy to get lost. Some services have hundreds of possible configurations and options to choose from. For starters, try to use the default settings. Over time, it will be time to dive into the details.

When you get to know the basic services well, how they work and how they interact, it will be easier for you to move on to the next ones.

Okay, you ask, but what are these basic services? In my opinion, at the beginning it is most useful to know such services as:

  • EC2
  • IAM
  • S3
  • VPC

What’s next? It depends on what you want to achieve. I recommend getting interested in services such as:

  • RDS
  • CloudWatch
  • Route 53
  • Cloud Front

One could write for a long time, some will be interested in CloudFormation if they want to build infrastructure as code, others will be interested in Big Data or IoT services. The AWS cloud has a lot of services. It’s not about getting to know all the ones you need. In my opinion, knowledge of these basic services can only be a plus.

After completing the exercises, be sure to delete the resources you created !! It’s good to be in the habit of deleting what is unnecessary right away so that you don’t pay for what you don’t use anymore.

If you are concerned that your cloud bill will be too high, see my article on How to control costs in the AWS cloud ?? It explains how to set a budget and receive notifications when we start spending too much money. This allows you to easily control the cost of the cloud.

Certificate

If you already get to know the cloud a bit, you can test your skills by, for example, passing the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. There is a fee for the exam, but after passing it, you will receive a certificate confirming your skills.

The good news is that AWS often gives vouchers for such exams for free. An exam voucher can often be obtained during various challenges, courses or reinvents. Here you will find an example of a challenge where you could get a free exam voucher.

When you know the cloud well, you may also be interested in other AWS certificates. On the AWS website you will find a beautifully drawn certification path chart. There is a lot of information about them and what you need to know to pass the exam.

It is also worth taking a look at AWS Certification Journeys (awscloud.com)

If you want to know ‘How I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam‘. I encourage you to read the article.

Summary

Hope you liked the article. Once you get to know the AWS cloud a bit, I encourage you to read my blog and other similar blogs where people share their knowledge.

Soon I am going to make a list of interesting blogs and cloud websites worth visiting in 2022. If you want to expand your cloud knowledge, it will be worth getting acquainted with these items.

In the meantime, I encourage you to read the next articles related to AWS.

1 thought on “A beginner’s guide. How to start your adventure with the AWS cloud ??”

  1. This is a really worthy article. I respect your effort and sharing these valuable information. Thank you very much.

Comments are closed.