Master AWS Cloud Computing From Scratch

Clear, interactive, and structured AWS lessons designed for absolute beginners.

COURSE SYLLABUS
1. AWS Introduction
Introduction to AWS What is AWS? AWS Global Infrastructure AWS Management Console AWS Account Setup Root User vs IAM User Free Tier & Billing Safety
2. Identity & Access Management
Introduction to IAM IAM Users IAM Groups IAM Policies IAM Roles Multi-Factor Authentication
3. Amazon EC2
Introduction to EC2 EC2 Basics EC2 Instance Types Launch an EC2 Instance Security Groups Key Pairs Elastic Block Store (EBS)
4. Amazon S3
Introduction to S3 S3 Concepts S3 Buckets S3 Objects & Keys Versioning Bucket Policies
5. Amazon VPC
Introduction to VPC VPC Concepts Subnets Route Tables Internet Gateway NAT Gateway VPC Security Groups
6. Amazon RDS
Introduction to RDS RDS Concepts Database Engines Create RDS Database Backups
7. AWS Lambda
Introduction to Lambda Lambda Concepts Lambda Functions Triggers Environment Variables
8. Amazon CloudWatch
Introduction to CloudWatch CloudWatch Concepts Metrics CloudWatch Logs Alarms
9. Elastic Load Balancing
Introduction to Elastic Load Balancing ELB Concepts Application Load Balancer (ALB) Network Load Balancer (NLB) Gateway Load Balancer Target Groups Health Checks Listeners & Rules

Identity and Access Management

IAM controls authentication and authorization for AWS resources. Authentication answers who is requesting access; authorization answers what that identity is allowed to do.

Why it matters

AWS resources should not be openly accessible. IAM is the control layer that enforces least privilege.

How it works

Identity → policy evaluation → Allow/Deny decision → AWS service action.

Real-world example: A developer identity may be allowed to start EC2 instances but denied permission to change billing settings.

Core Concept

IAM is used for identities, groups, policies, roles and authentication controls.

Use least privilege: grant only the permissions required for the task.

IdentityIAM PolicyAllow / DenyAction + ResourceAWS Resource

What you should remember

Key idea

IAM is used for identities, groups, policies, roles and authentication controls.

Key idea

Use least privilege: grant only the permissions required for the task.

Real-world example

Use a realistic cloud workload and focus on the responsibility of this AWS service.

User → AWS service → application → data / response

Choose the service that matches the responsibility instead of forcing every workload into one resource.

# Conceptual workflow aws-service --resource example # Verify configuration → test → monitor → clean up
Practice tip: Build the smallest possible lab, verify the result, then remove resources you no longer need.

Quick Test

1 Question

What does IAM primarily control?

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