Introduction to AWS for Beginners

📘 Chapter 3: Hands-On With AWS – Your First Deployments

🔍 Overview

In this chapter, we’ll put AWS into action. You’ve learned the theory and explored the core services—now it’s time to build real-world projects step-by-step using the AWS Free Tier. This chapter is designed for absolute beginners to deploy cloud infrastructure confidently using the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI.

You’ll learn to:

• Deploy a virtual machine (EC2)
• Host a static website (S3)
• Create and connect a database (RDS)
• Automate tasks using Lambda
• Monitor resources using CloudWatch
• Use IAM roles and permissions securely

🖥️ 1. Launching a Virtual Server Using EC2

✅ Steps:

1. Go to EC2 Dashboard
2. Click Launch Instance
3. Choose an AMI (e.g., Amazon Linux 2023)
4. Choose t2.micro (Free Tier)
5. Configure storage (default: 8 GB)
6. Create a new key pair for SSH
7. Configure security group to allow SSH (port 22)
8. Launch the instance

✅ Connect to EC2 via Terminal

bash

ssh -i MyKeyPair.pem ec2-user@<Public-IP>

🌐 2. Hosting a Static Website on S3

✅ Create S3 Bucket:

1. Go to S3
2. Click Create Bucket
3. Name the bucket uniquely (e.g., my-website-demo)
4. Uncheck Block all public access
5. Enable Static website hosting

✅ Upload Files:

• Upload your index.html and any assets (CSS/JS)

✅ Set Bucket Policy:

json

{

  "Version": "2012-10-17",

  "Statement": [{

    "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",

    "Effect": "Allow",

    "Principal": "*",

    "Action": "s3:GetObject",

    "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::my-website-demo/*"

  }]

}

🧮 3. Creating a MySQL Database with RDS

✅ Steps:

1. Go to RDS → Create database
2. Choose MySQL, free tier eligible
3. DB instance class: db.t2.micro
4. Set master username/password
5. Enable public access for testing
6. Set backup retention and enable auto minor version upgrade

✅ Connect to RDS:

Install a MySQL client and run:

bash

mysql -h your-db-endpoint.rds.amazonaws.com \

  -u admin -p

Create a table:

sql

CREATE DATABASE demo;

USE demo;

CREATE TABLE users (

  id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,

  name VARCHAR(255)

);

⚡ 4. Deploying a Simple Lambda Function

✅ Create a Lambda Function:

1. Go to Lambda → Create Function
2. Name: HelloLambda
3. Runtime: Python 3.10
4. Create new role with basic permissions

Paste the code:

python

def lambda_handler(event, context):

    return {

        'statusCode': 200,

        'body': 'Hello from Lambda!'

    }

✅ Test the Function:

• Create a test event (leave as default JSON)
• Click Test
• View the logs in the output window

🔐 5. Creating IAM Users and Roles

✅ Create a User:

1. Go to IAM → Users → Add User
2. Username: developer
3. Access type: Programmatic + Console access
4. Assign permissions:
• Use Attach existing policies
• Select AmazonS3FullAccess (for demo)
5. Create user and download access keys

✅ Create Role:

1. Go to Roles → Create Role
2. Choose AWS Service (e.g., Lambda)
3. Attach AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess
4. Name: lambda-s3-read

📈 6. Monitoring with CloudWatch

✅ Set Up a CloudWatch Alarm:

1. Go to CloudWatch → Alarms → Create Alarm
2. Metric: EC2 → CPU Utilization
3. Threshold: > 80% for 5 minutes
4. Notification: SNS or Email

✅ View Lambda Logs:

1. Go to CloudWatch → Log groups
2. Select the function HelloLambda
3. View output, errors, and execution time

📋 Summary Table – First-Time Deployments

🏁 Final Thoughts

You’ve just completed your first hands-on experience with AWS. From launching servers and databases to running serverless code and monitoring resources, you've touched nearly every part of a scalable application architecture.

Next, you can connect these services into a full-stack app or automate them with AWS CloudFormation or CDK.