Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a comprehensive and widely adopted cloud platform, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. AWS is used by millions of customers, including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies, to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster.

• Definition: Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.
• Benefits:
  • Cost Savings: No need to invest in physical data centers or servers.
  • Scalability: Easily scale up or down based on demand.
  • Performance: Access to a vast network of data centers to ensure low latency and high performance.
  • Security: Advanced security features to protect data and applications.

• Regions: Geographical areas that contain multiple data centers.
• Availability Zones (AZs): Isolated locations within a region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking.
• Edge Locations: Data centers for delivering content to end-users with lower latency.

AWS offers a wide range of services, including:

• Compute: Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda
• Storage: Amazon S3, Amazon EBS
• Databases: Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB
• Networking: Amazon VPC, AWS Direct Connect
• Security: AWS IAM, AWS KMS

1. Launch an EC2 Instance:

   # Step 1: Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/
   # Step 2: Choose "Launch Instance"
   # Step 3: Select an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
   # Step 4: Choose an Instance Type
   # Step 5: Configure Instance Details
   # Step 6: Add Storage
   # Step 7: Add Tags
   # Step 8: Configure Security Group
   # Step 9: Review and Launch
   

2. Connect to Your Instance:

   ssh -i "your-key-pair.pem" ec2-user@your-ec2-public-dns
   

3. Install a Web Server:

   sudo yum update -y
   sudo yum install -y httpd
   sudo systemctl start httpd
   sudo systemctl enable httpd
   

4. Verify the Web Server:

   • Open a web browser and enter the public DNS of your EC2 instance. You should see the Apache test page.

1. Question: List three benefits of using AWS.
2. Question: What is the difference between a Region and an Availability Zone?

1. Task: Launch an EC2 instance and install a web server. Verify that the web server is running by accessing it through a web browser.

1. Answer:
   • Cost Savings
   • Scalability
   • Performance
2. Answer:
   • Region: A geographical area that contains multiple data centers.
   • Availability Zone: Isolated locations within a region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking.

1. Solution:
   • Follow the steps outlined in the Practical Example section to launch an EC2 instance and install a web server.

• Mistake: Forgetting to configure the security group to allow HTTP traffic.
  • Tip: Ensure that port 80 (HTTP) is open in the security group settings.
• Mistake: Not saving the key pair file securely.
  • Tip: Store the key pair file in a secure location and set appropriate permissions.

In this section, we introduced AWS, its key concepts, and the benefits of cloud computing. We also provided a practical example of setting up a simple web server on AWS and included exercises to reinforce the learned concepts. In the next section, we will guide you through setting up your AWS account to start using AWS services.