DevOps with AWS
A hands-on DevOps-on-AWS roadmap for beginners. Each article is a self-contained lab you can do yourself, with a cleanup section at the end so you never get a surprise bill.
What DevOps Is and Why You Should Learn It Alongside AWS
Series opener: what problem DevOps solves, what work it covers, why we learn it together with AWS, and the hands-on roadmap ahead.
Open an AWS Account Safely and Set Up a Billing Alert
Create an AWS account the right way: enable MFA on the root account, create an IAM user for daily use, install the AWS CLI, and set a Budget so no bill catches you off guard.
EC2: Create Your First Virtual Server and Run a Web Server
Create an EC2 instance, SSH into it, install nginx, and open the web page in a browser. The first article with a billable resource, so also the first with a cleanup section.
VPC and Security Group: Networking and Basic Firewalling on AWS
Understand VPC, public/private subnets, route tables, and Security Groups. Know why your server lets some in and not others, and how to tighten access correctly.
S3: Store Files and Host a Static Website
Create an S3 bucket, upload files, and host a static website on the Internet without any server running continuously. Understand buckets, objects, and managing access.
RDS: Running an AWS-Managed PostgreSQL Database
Create a PostgreSQL database on RDS, put it in a private subnet, connect from EC2, and understand why RDS beats running your own database on EC2. RDS is the easiest service to rack up a bill, so cleanup matters most here.
Dockerizing an Application and Pushing the Image to ECR
Package a Node.js application into a Docker image, create an ECR repository, and push the image to it. This is the foundation for the CI/CD article that follows.
CI/CD with GitHub Actions: Automatically Build and Deploy to AWS
Build a pipeline: every push to GitHub automatically builds a Docker image, pushes it to ECR, and deploys to EC2. Uses OIDC so you don't store an AWS access key in GitHub.
CloudWatch: Monitoring and Viewing Your Application's Logs
Create a CPU alarm that emails you via SNS, and ship container logs to CloudWatch Logs for centralized viewing. Know how the system is running and get alerted when something goes wrong.
Series Wrap-up and a Full Audit of Your AWS Account
The final article: a full-account audit checklist to be sure no resource is quietly billing you, a review of the best practices used, and suggestions for where to learn next.