AWS Cloud Basics: Understand the Cloud and Build a Small Live Setup

Almost every website, phone app and streaming service runs on rented computers. If you understand that one idea, the rest of this course is much easier. If you skip it, every later word will sound like jargon.

The cloud is a friendly name for computers that you rent over the internet instead of buying. The computers sit in large buildings called data centers. A company such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) owns the buildings, the machines and the power supply. You ask for what you need with a web page or a program, and you pay for what you use.

Think about water at home. You could dig a well, buy a pump and fix it when it breaks. Or you could join the town water supply and pay for what you use. The cloud is the town supply for computing.

Cloud providers rent out four basic kinds of things:

1. Compute: computers that run programs.
2. Storage: places to keep files, such as photos and documents.
3. Databases: organized storage for facts you need to search, such as a customer list.
4. Networking: the roads and doors that connect things to each other and to the internet.

AWS has a very long list of services. Nearly all of them are built from these four kinds, or they help you manage them. When you meet a new service name, ask which of the four it is.

Three habits make the cloud different from owning machines. You can get resources whenever you want, with a few clicks. You can use more or less as your needs change. And you pay for what you consume, so you must watch your usage. We come back to that last point often, because it is where beginners get surprised.

How this course works. There are six modules with four lessons each. Every lesson has the same six parts, so you always know where you are. Each lesson ends with a short task. Each module ends with a project that adds one part to your Cloud Practice File, a single document that you finish in Module 6.

Hands-on and the paper path. Some tasks use a free AWS account. That account asks for a payment method, and cloud services can cost money if you leave things running. So this course teaches billing alerts before it teaches building, and every building task ends with clean-up. If you prefer not to open an account, use the paper path in each task. It teaches the same skill with worksheets and free tools.

Independence. This course is not made, sponsored or endorsed by Amazon Web Services. It teaches ideas and skills. It makes no promise about any exam or job. AWS and other names belong to their owners. Prices, screens and rules change, so we tell you where to check the current facts.

Example (illustrative): Sam runs a small bakery and wants a website that takes orders.

1. The old way: buy a computer, keep it running in the back room, and pay someone to fix it. If the bakery closes, you still own the computer.
2. The cloud way: rent only the pieces you need and pay by use. Cancel them when you no longer want them.
3. Map the pieces to the four kinds:
   • The web page files and cake photos are storage.
   • The program that adds up an order is compute.
   • The list of past orders is a database.
   • The link between a customer's browser and the bakery site is networking.

Sam now understands the shape of the system without knowing a single product name. Product names come next, one at a time, and each one will slot into a kind you already know.

• Picturing one giant machine in the sky. It happens because the word 'cloud' sounds vague. Fix: picture many real computers in real buildings that you rent.
• Believing the cloud is always cheaper. It happens because ads say 'pay only for what you use'. Fix: the cloud is flexible, and the cost depends on how you use it, so you check it.
• Reading without doing. It happens because reading feels like progress. Fix: finish each task, even the paper path, before you start the next lesson.

You can say in two sentences what the cloud is, and you can name the four kinds of things you can rent. Your Cloud Practice File exists and has a Part 1 heading, a business or project you know well, and a list of what it would need in each of the four kinds.