AWS

AWS is often the first public cloud platform infrastructure engineers encounter when workloads move beyond traditional data centers. Understanding the core building blocks makes hybrid and migration work much easier.

Part of my Infrastructure learning notes.

Core service map

Traditional conceptAWS equivalent
Virtual machineEC2
Block storageEBS
Object storageS3
Virtual networkVPC
Firewall rulesSecurity Groups / NACLs
DNSRoute 53
Identity and accessIAM

What to learn first

  1. IAM — users, roles, policies, least privilege
  2. VPC — subnets, routing, gateways, security boundaries
  3. EC2 — instance types, AMIs, launch patterns
  4. EBS / S3 — persistent and object storage models
  5. CloudWatch — metrics, logs, and basic observability

Hybrid mindset

Most enterprises do not move everything to cloud at once. Infrastructure engineers need to understand:

  • How on-premises networks connect to AWS
  • Which workloads belong in cloud vs data center
  • How identity and patching models differ
  • How automation practices translate between environments

Common migration pattern

Assess workload dependencies
        ↓
Design target VPC and security model
        ↓
Migrate compute/storage/network in phases
        ↓
Validate monitoring, backup, and recovery
        ↓
Optimize cost and operations after cutover

Operational lessons

  • Security groups are stateful and easy to misconfigure
  • VPC design decisions are hard to unwind later
  • Instance sizing and storage type strongly affect cost
  • Tagging and naming standards matter early, not later