Getting Started with Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the largest and most mature public cloud platform, with the broadest catalog of managed services of any provider. That breadth is a strength for teams with varied workloads, but it also means picking the right subset of services matters more than on smaller platforms.
Further reading: AWS Getting Started Resource Center
Core Services
- EC2 — resizable virtual machines with the widest selection of instance types and pricing models (on-demand, reserved, spot) of any major cloud.
- S3 — durable object storage that underpins most AWS architectures, from static hosting to data lakes.
- RDS — managed relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, and more) with automated backups, patching, and multi-AZ failover.
- Lambda — event-driven serverless compute, commonly used for APIs, data processing, and glue logic between services.
- VPC — the networking foundation for isolating and securing everything else you run on AWS.
Identity and Security Basics
IAM in AWS is policy-based: users, roles, and services are granted permissions through JSON policy documents attached directly or via groups. The most common early mistake is over-scoping the root account or long-lived access keys; instead, use IAM roles with temporary credentials, and enable MFA and CloudTrail logging from day one.
Getting Started
A typical first setup involves creating an AWS account with a dedicated billing alert, setting up IAM Identity Center for human access instead of the root user, defining a VPC with public and private subnets, and provisioning resources through Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation, CDK, or Terraform) rather than the console once past the exploration phase.
When to Choose AWS
AWS is a strong default when you need the widest range of managed services, mature enterprise support options, or are operating at a scale where AWS's ecosystem of third-party tooling and hiring pool becomes a practical advantage.
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