Cloud Architecting pathway: design, secure and scale on AWS.

adds: users and the AWS Cloud

Opens with

You meet the job of a cloud architect: turning a business need into a design that is secure, reliable, quick enough and sensible on cost. You see the principles used to judge a design, and the business scenario you will build on for the rest of the course.

• the architect's role
• design principles
• the course scenario

• Introducing Cloud Architecting

  What a cloud architect does, and the design principles the course builds on.

adds: secure access

Secure it

Security comes first. You learn how AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) decides who can do what: users, groups and roles, and policies that give each one only the permissions it needs. Later you extend this to people signing in to your application and to keeping data encrypted.

• IAM users, groups and roles
• least-privilege policies
• user sign-in
• encrypting data

You practise setting access rules for the people and services in the scenario.

• Securing Access

  Controlling who and what can reach your AWS resources.

• Securing User, Application, and Data Access

  Signing users in, giving applications only the permissions they need and protecting data.

adds: storage, a server, a database

Store & compute

The application gets somewhere to live. Files and a simple website go into Amazon S3, where storage classes and lifecycle rules keep the cost down. The application runs on Amazon EC2 virtual servers started from machine images, and its data moves into a managed database such as Amazon RDS, with Amazon DynamoDB for key-value data.

• S3 storage classes and lifecycle
• EC2 instances and machine images
• Amazon RDS and DynamoDB

You practise hosting a website on S3, launching a server and connecting it to a database.

• Adding a Storage Layer with Amazon S3

  Keeping files, and a simple website, in Amazon S3 storage.

• Adding a Compute Layer Using Amazon EC2

  Running your application on virtual servers.

• Adding a Database Layer

  Moving the application's data into a managed database.

adds: the network around them

Connect

Servers and databases need a private network. You design an Amazon VPC with public and private subnets, route tables and gateways, so the parts that should face the internet do and the rest stay private. Then you connect networks to each other and to an office network.

• VPCs and subnets
• routing and gateways
• security groups
• peering and VPN connections

You practise building a network with public and private parts, then linking it to a second one.

• Creating a Networking Environment

  Building a private network with public and private parts.

• Connecting Networks

  Linking networks to each other and to an office network.

adds: load balancing, more servers, caching, functions

Scale

Now the design has to cope with real traffic. A load balancer spreads requests across servers, auto scaling adds and removes servers as demand changes, and Amazon CloudWatch keeps watch. You describe infrastructure as code so it can be rebuilt the same way, cache content close to users, let parts of the system pass work through queues, run code without managing servers, and see common patterns for moving and preparing data.

• load balancing and auto scaling
• CloudWatch monitoring
• infrastructure as code
• caching and content delivery
• queues and decoupling
• serverless functions
• data pipelines

You practise an environment that stays up when a server fails and grows with demand.

• Implementing Monitoring, Elasticity, and High Availability

  Keeping the system running, and letting it grow or shrink with demand.

• Automating Your Architecture

  Describing infrastructure as code, so it can be built again the same way.

• Caching Content

  Keeping copies of content close to users so pages load faster.

• Building Decoupled Architectures

  Letting parts of a system pass work through queues, so one slow part does not stop the rest.

• Building Serverless Architectures and Microservices

  Running code without managing servers, as small independent services.

• Data Engineering Patterns

  Collecting, storing and preparing large amounts of data for analysis.

adds: a backup copy

Recover

Things fail. You compare backup and disaster recovery strategies, from simple backups to a standby copy in another AWS Region, and weigh how quickly each brings a system back against what it costs.

• backups
• recovery time and recovery point
• standby and multi-Region designs

• Planning for Disaster

  Backups and recovery plans, so a system can come back after a failure.

adds: the bridge to the exam

Closes with

How the course maps to the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam, and how to keep preparing. The exam itself is not included.

• Bridging to Certification

  How the course connects to the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate exam.