Ask HN: How to Learn AWS? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Learn AWS?

2 pointsAJRF3 comments

How can I learn how to deploy modern software on a public cloud safely, securely and in a cost efficient manner?

I'm asking because i'm trying to get a semi complicated software stack out of docker-compose and into the world via AWS. I am trying and failing due to the overwhelming amount of options out there to deploy anything.

Maybe it's helpful to give the stack I have created. I have a react front end, postgres DB for user login and session management, mongodb for a document store, and redis for handling a job queue. This was all running in a docker-compose file with a single network.

When I tried to get this running on AWS I read a lot about Kubernetes and came away with the impression that it's too complicated for most people, and in fact most people don't even need it. But I wanted to stay with Docker so I could deploy updates simply.

So using ECS Fargate I was able to get my front-end and back-end running but when it came to getting redis and postgres running I wanted to use the fully-managed versions on AWS, but then I started reading about VPC's and started to realise I don't know enough about the fundamentals to make informed decisions on how these bits should all talk to each other - hence me asking here.

Are there good websites, tutorial series or books out there I could read to understand the complexity of all this?

I recently took and passed the AWS Certified Cloud Professional exam, based on the training material from https://acloud.guru/ and my personal experience (30+ years as a SysAdmin/DevOps Engineer, overlapping with 7+ years as a cloud consultant, including working extensively with AWS). I’m now going through the acloud.guru training material for the AWS Certifies Solutions Architect. And I’ve got several more AWS certifications planned.

The acloud.guru site is not the only training facility out there — I think there may be better material from certain teachers on Udemy.com, but acloud.guru is free for us thanks to an arrangement with my employer, so that’s the primary service I’m using.

In the years since I graduated from university and went into the professional field in 1989, I haven’t seen very many certificates that I felt had a lot of value. Netware certificates actually meant something. As did Cisco certs. But I’ve found very few other certificates that do. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of stuff I’ve learned in pursuit of my AWS certificates. Sure, there’s lots of stuff I already knew, but then there were also a surprising amount of gaps in my knowledge that I would have never known about, had I not gone through this training.

That said, just going for the certificates is not useful. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to actually build stuff with the material you’re learning. You can use a free account, or the “sandbox” type systems that are provided through acloud.guru, or other training facilities.

If you want to learn AWS, I recommend you actually do stuff with AWS. You’ll learn it as you build and break various things. And doing the certifications as you go may help you learn more than you could have learned on your own.

https://www.aws.training/ should help you out :)

I saw links to this and thought it would be bullshit-y enterprise training, but now I actually look at it looks actually useful - so, thank you!

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