Understanding AWS Key Terminology for Beginners

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world‘s most popular and widely-used cloud platform, offering over 200 services spanning computing, storage, networking, databases, analytics, application services, deployment, management, and more.

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With the increasing popularity of AWS, there is also an increasing demand for developers and engineers who understand how to architect and build applications on AWS. However, the platform‘s sheer number of services and concepts can quickly become overwhelming for those who are new to AWS.

This article aims to help beginners understand the key terminologies commonly used in AWS. We‘ll provide an introductory overview of major AWS services and fundamental concepts you need to know as you start your cloud journey.

Major AWS Services

Here are explanations of some of the most essential AWS services that you‘ll encounter as a beginner:

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

  • EC2 provides resizable virtual servers (called instances) to run applications on the AWS cloud. It allows you to rent compute capacity you need without investing in physical servers.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

  • S3 offers highly durable and available object-based cloud storage for any type of data like images, documents, videos, log files, backups, etc. Data is stored in buckets which act like folders.

AWS Lambda

  • Lambda lets you run code without provisioning servers. You only pay for the compute time used to execute your code. Useful for scalable, event-driven applications and serverless architectures.

Amazon DynamoDB

  • Fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast performance at any scale with built-in security and redundancy. Useful for modern applications needing flexible data models and reliable performance.

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)

  • RDS allows creation and management of relational databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and SQL Server. Takes care of database administration tasks.

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)

  • Managed message queuing service to enable communication between distributed application components. Allows decoupling and scaling of processes using queues.

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)

  • Pub/sub messaging and mobile notifications service that coordinates communication between publishers and subscribers. Allows fanout messaging patterns and push notifications.

This covers some of the major managed services that make up the AWS platform. There are many additional services for analytics, machine learning, security, deployment, and more that we don‘t have space to cover here.

Now let‘s look at some fundamental AWS concepts and components you‘ll come across.

AWS Regions and Availability Zones

AWS infrastructure is organized into geographic Regions and Availability Zones (AZs) within each Region.

  • Each Region consists of multiple isolated locations or data centers called AZs.

  • Resources aren‘t replicated across Regions by default. You need to create resources in separate Regions for geographic diversity.

  • AZs provide isolated fault domains with independent power, networking, cooling. This gives high availability to applications.

  • Low latency access to resources if application components are in the same Region or AZs.

Picking the optimal Region and distributing resources across AZs is crucial for high performance and availability.

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

  • Logically isolated virtual networks to launch AWS resources like EC2 instances, RDS databases, Lambda functions etc.

  • Allows complete control over the virtual networking environment like IP address ranges, subnets, route tables, network gateways etc.

  • Enables secure communication between resources inside the VPC and on-premises networks using VPN or DX connections.

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

  • IAM allows managing permissions for users, groups and resources across AWS services.

  • E.g. you can define IAM policies to allow a user to start/stop EC2 instances or list objects in an S3 bucket.

  • IAM enables implementing least privilege access and improving security posture on AWS.

EC2 Instance Types and Families

AWS offers a very wide variety of instance types optimized for different use cases like:

  • General purpose (A, M, T instance families)
  • Compute optimized (C instances)
  • Memory optimized (R, X instances)
  • Accelerated computing (P, G, F instances with GPUs/FPGAs)
  • Storage optimized (I, D, H instances)

It‘s important to pick the right instance type to get optimal performance vs cost efficiency for your workloads.

AWS Storage Options

Some major storage options available on AWS:

  • Block Storage with Elastic Block Store (EBS) Volumes – Persistent storage volumes that can be attached to EC2 instances

  • Object Storage with S3 – Durable, scalable object storage accessible through HTTP requests

  • File Storage with Elastic File System (EFS) – Managed file storage for use with EC2 instances through network file system interface

  • Ephemeral Storage with Instance Store Volumes – Temporary block storage on the physical host, provides high IOPS

Each option has its own performance characteristics and ideal use cases.

AWS Networking Fundamentals

Some key networking concepts on AWS:

  • Subnets – Range of IP addresses within the VPC CIDR block to group instances based on security / communication needs
  • Route Tables – Set of rules defining routing of network traffic from subnets
  • Internet Gateways – Attach to VPC to allow public Internet access to resources
  • NAT Gateways – Allow private subnets to connect to Internet for updates, while preventing inbound connections
  • Security Groups – Stateful firewall to control inbound and outbound traffic at instance level

AWS Management and Governance

Crucial capabilities that enable visibility, auditability, and control:

  • AWS CloudTrail – Tracks API calls and logs user activity across accounts
  • AWS Config – Records configurations of AWS resources for auditing and compliance
  • Amazon CloudWatch – Monitoring service provides metrics, logs and dashboards to gain observability
  • AWS Trusted Advisor – Provides optimization recommendations based on best practices

These allow managing, governing, and operating reliable environments at scale on AWS.

AWS Billing and Cost Management

You have fine-grained control over consumption and costs on AWS:

  • Pay as you go pricing – Pay only for what you use without upfront costs or long-term contracts
  • AWS Budgets – Set custom budgets that alert you when charges exceed thresholds
  • Cost Allocation Tags – Track costs at fine-grained level by tagging resources (e.g. cost center tags)
  • Reserved Instances – Reduce costs by making upfront commitments in exchange for lower hourly rate
  • AWS Savings Plans – Reduce costs further via flexible, low-risk commitments

Monitoring usage and optimizing expenditures is easy given the transparent pricing and tools available.

We‘ve covered a lot of ground explaining key AWS basics! Here are some recommended next steps:

  • Create a free-tier AWS account to get hands-on experience using core services through the console and CLI
  • Go through AWS training courses to reinforce concepts
  • Read AWS whitepapers and documentation on services you‘re interested in
  • Build serverless applications using Lambda, DynamoDB, S3 to learn best practices
  • Prototype and experiment with different solutions before committing to production deployments

I hope this overview gives you a solid foundation to continue your AWS cloud learning journey! Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions.

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