Learning Amazon Web Services (AWS) : A Hands-On Guide to the Fundamentals of AWS Cloud

Learning Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a clear, complete, practical, and hands-on introduction to the world’s leading cloud platform -- a perfect resource for everyone who needs to understand AWS, whatever their previous IT background. Top cloud trainer and evangelist Mark Wilkins covers all you need to know to succeed with AWS, introducing each key concept in the context of a book-length case study. He teaches best practices that fully align with Amazon’s Well Architected Framework, the basis of all AWS certifications -- making this guide a valuable learning tool for those seeking to demonstrate their expertise by pursuing formal certification. Wilkins introduces new concepts based on how they are presented in the AWS self-service portal, making his coverage even easier to learn from and practice with. Coverage includes: The big picture: What AWS is, how it has evolved, and how it can help you Foundation Core Services: compute, network, storage, and databases Implementing AWS Compute Services and EC2 instances (and understanding their pricing) Enforcing AWS security, compliance, and control Leveraging AWS Networking Services, including VPC, CIDR, DHCP, NAT, Internet gateways, endpoints, and VPNs Utilizing AWS cloud storage and databases Efficiently administering and managing AWS Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents at a Glance Table of Contents Preface About the Author Acknowledgments 1 Learning AWS About This Book Trying to Define the Cloud Moving to AWS Infrastructure as a Service Platform as a Service Essential Characteristics of AWS Cloud Computing Operational Benefits of AWS Cloud Provider Limitations Data Security at AWS Network Security at AWS Application Security at AWS Compliance in the AWS Cloud Playing in the AWS Sandbox What’s the Problem That Needs to Be Solved? Migrating Applications The Well-Architected Framework The Well-Architected Tool In Conclusion 2 Designing with AWS Global Services Considering Location AWS Regions Region Isolation Availability Zones Availability Zone Distribution Multiple Availability Zones What’s the AWS Service-Level Agreement? Everything Fails Global Edge Services Services Located at the Edge Choosing a Region Compliance AWS and Compliance HIPAA NIST GovCloud Latency Concerns Services Offered at Each Region Calculating Costs Management Service Costs Management Tools Pricing: AWS Config AWS Compute Costs Storage Costs Data Transfer Costs Understand Tiered Costs at AWS Optimizing Costs at AWS Optimizing Compute Costs Tools for Analyzing Costs at AWS Trusted Advisor AWS Simple Monthly Calculator Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator In Conclusion Top 10 Big-Picture Discussion Points: Compliance, Governance, Latency, and Failover Considerations 3 AWS Networking Services VPC Networking Partnering with AWS What’s Behind the Networking Curtain? It’s All About Packet Flow Creating Your First VPC How Many VPCs? Creating the VPC CIDR Block Planning Your Primary VPC CIDR Block The Default VPC Revisiting Availability Zones Creating Subnets NAT Services Working with Route Tables The Main Route Table Private IPV4 Addresses Elastic IP Addresses Traffic Charges Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP) The BYOIP Process IPv6 Addresses Security Groups Custom Security Groups Network ACLs Network ACL Implementation Details Understanding Ephemeral Ports VPC Flow Logs Peering VPCs Establishing a Peering Connection Gateway VPC Endpoints Interface VPC Endpoints VPC Connectivity Internet Gateway: The Public Door VPN Connections Virtual Private Gateway VPN Connections VPN CloudHub Understanding Route Propagation Direct Connect Route 53 Route 53 Routing Options Route 53 Health Checks Using DNS with a VPC: Private DNS Zones DNS Hostnames In Conclusion Top 10 Discussion Points: Considerations for Security, Failover, and Connectivity 4 Compute Services: AWS EC2 Instances A Short History of EC2 Virtualization The Nitro System EC2 Instances Instance Families What’s a vCPU? EC2 Instance Choices General-Purpose Instances Instances Designed to Burst Compute-Optimized Instances Memory-Optimized Instances Accelerated Computing (GPU) Storage-Optimized Instances Bare-Metal Instances Dedicated Hosts Dedicated Instances EC2 Network Performance Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) Choosing an AMI AWS Linux AMIs Linux AMI Virtualization Types Windows AMIs AWS Marketplace Creating a Custom AMI Custom Instance Store AMIs Proper AMI Design AMI Build Considerations AMI Best Practices Adopting a Best Practice: Tags Using Launch Templates Changing the Current Instance Type EC2 Pricing Reserved Instances (RI) Reserved Instance Limits Reserved EC2 Instances Types Scheduled Reserved EC2 Instances Spot Instance Spot Fleet Spot Capacity Pools EC2 Fleet EC2 Instance Storage Options Local Instance Storage—SSD or Magnetic Disk EC2 Auto Recovery Ordering an Instance Migrating to AWS Migration Big-Picture Steps AWS Migration Hub AWS Server Migration Services Server Migration Big Steps Importing and Exporting Virtual Resources Other Ways to Host Workloads at AWS Containers Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) AWS Fargate AWS ECS for Kubernetes (EKS) Amazon LightSail Lambda AWS Firecracker In Conclusion Top 10 Big-Picture Discussion Points: Migration and Planning Considerations 5 Planning for Scale and Resiliency The Concept of Monitoring What Is CloudWatch? Monitoring Logging Collecting Data with the CloudWatch Agent CloudWatch Agent Install Steps Planning for Monitoring CloudWatch Integration CloudWatch Terminology Using the Dashboard Creating a CloudWatch Alarm Additional Alarm and Action Settings Actions Monitoring EC2 Instances Automatically Reboot or Recover Instances Elastic Load Balancing Services Redundancy by Design EC2 Health Checks Additional ELB Features Application Load Balancer (ALB) Big-Picture Steps: ALB Creation Rule Choices HTTPS Listener Security Settings Target Group Routing Maintaining User Sessions Sticky Session Support Configuring Health Checks Monitoring Load Balancer Operation Network Load Balancer Scaling Applications EC2 Auto Scaling EC2 Auto Scaling Components Launch Configuration Launch Templates Auto Scaling Groups (ASGs) Scaling Options for Auto Scaling Groups Lifecycle Hooks AWS Auto Scaling In Conclusion Top 10 Big-Picture Discussion Points: Scale, Availability, and Monitoring Decisions 6 Cloud Storage Cloud Storage Which Storage Matches Your Workload? EBS Block Storage EBS Volume Types General-Purpose SSD (gp2) Elastic EBS Volumes Attaching an EBS Volume EBS Volume Encryption EBS Snapshots Tagging EBS Volumes and Snapshots EBS Best Practices S3 Storage Buckets, Objects, and Keys S3 Data Consistency S3 Storage Classes S3 Management Versioning S3 Bucket Security Amazon S3 Glacier Archive Storage S3 Glacier Vaults and Archives Shared File Systems at AWS Elastic File System (EFS) EFS Performance Modes EFS Throughput Modes EFS Security Storage Performance Compared Amazon FSx for Windows File Server Relational Database Service (RDS) RDS Database Instances High Availability for RDS Big-Picture RDS Installation Steps Monitoring Database Performance Best Practices for RDS Aurora Aurora Storage Communicating with Aurora DynamoDB Database Design 101 DynamoDB Tables Provisioning Table Capacity Adaptive Capacity Data Consistency ACID and DynamoDB Global Tables DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) Backup and Restore ElastiCache AWS Data Transfer Options The Snow Family AWS Storage Gateway Family In Conclusion Top 10 Big-Picture Discussion Points: Storage Options and Considerations 7 Security Services Identity and Access Management IAM Policy Defined IAM Authentication Requesting Access to AWS Resources The Authorization Process Actions IAM Users The Root User The IAM User Creating an IAM User IAM User Access keys IAM Groups Signing In as an IAM User IAM Account Details IAM User Account Summary Creating a Password Policy Rotating Access Keys Using Multifactor Authentication (MFA) IAM Policy Types Identity-Based Policies Resource-Based Policies In-Line Policies IAM Policy Creation Policy Elements Reading a Simple JSON Policy Policy Actions Additional Policy Control Options Reviewing the Policy Permissions Applied IAM Policy Versions Using Conditional Elements Using Tags with IAM Identities IAM Roles When to Use Roles Cross-Account Access to AWS Resources The AWS Security Token Service (STS) Identity Federation IAM Best Practices IAM Security Tools Creating a CloudWatch Trail Event Other AWS Security Services AWS Organizations Resource Access Manager (AWS RAM) Secrets Manager GuardDuty AWS Inspector In Conclusion Top 10 Big-Picture Discussion Points 8 Automating AWS Infrastructure Automating with AWS From Manual to Automated Infrastructure with CloudFormation CloudFormation Components CloudFormation Templates Stacks Creating an EC2 Instance with ElP Updating with Change Sets Working with CloudFormation Stack Sets AWS Service Catalog The 12-Factor Methodology Rule 1. Codebase—One Codebase That Is Tracked with Version Control Allows Many Deploys AWS CodeCommit Rule 2. Dependencies—Explicitly Declare and Isolate Dependencies Rule 3. Config—Store Config in the Environment Rule 4. Backing Services—Treat Backing Services as Attached Resources Rule 5. Build, Release, Run—Separate, Build, and Run Stages Rule 6. Process—Execute the App as One or More Stateless Processes Rule 7. Port Binding—Export Services via Port Binding Rule 8. Concurrency—Scale Out via the Process Model Rule 9. Disposability—Maximize Robustness with Fast Startup and Graceful Shutdown Rule 10. Dev/Prod Parity—Keep Development, Staging, and Production as Similar as Possible Rule 11. Logs—Treat Logs as Event Streams Rule 12. Admin Processes—Run Admin/Management Tasks as One-Off Processes Elastic Beanstalk Updating Elastic Beanstalk Applications CodePipeline AWS CodeDeploy Serviceless Computing with Lambda API Gateway Building a Serverless Web App Create a Static Website User Authentication Serverless Back-End Components Set Up the API Gateway In Conclusion Top 10 Big-Picture Discussion Points: Moving Toward Stateless Design Index A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Z The Practical, Foundational Technical Introduction to the World's #1 Cloud Platform Includes access to several hours of online training video: Mark Wilkins'expert training video library guides you through setting up core services and prepares you to deploy your own apps and resources. Learning Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the perfect foundational resource for all administrators, developers, project managers, and other IT professionals who want to plan and deploy AWS services and/or earn AWS certification. Top cloud trainer and evangelist Mark Wilkins teaches best practices that align with Amazon's Well-Architected Framework, introduces key concepts in the context of a running case study, carefully explains how core AWS services operate and integrate, and offers extensively tested tips for maximizing flexibility, security, and value. Companion online videos guide you step-by-step through setting AWS compute, storage, networking, scale, security, automation, and more. Balance cost, compliance, and latency in your service designs Choose the right networking options for your virtual private cloud (VPC) Build, host, launch, manage, and budget for EC2 compute services Plan for scale and resiliency, and make informed decisions about AWS storage Enforce strict security, and automate to improve operational efficiency This book with companion training videos is a valuable learning tool for anyone seeking to demonstrate expertise through formal certification. WEB EDITION: All buyers of the book or ebook can register your book for access to a free online Web Edition of this title, which included videos embedded within the text, plus updates as they become available.