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Learn AWS, one service at a time
Each page runs from the problem a service solves to the exam questions about it. While the library is still being written, every page is free — all of it, signed in or not.
Compute
- Auto ScalingKeeps the right number of EC2 instances running. It replaces the ones that fail, and adds or removes instances as the load changes.
- EC2Virtual machines you choose, size and run yourself: the most flexible compute on AWS, and the most work.
- LambdaRuns your code in response to events, with no servers to manage. You pay per request and by the millisecond, and a run lasts 15 minutes at most.
Networking & content delivery
- API GatewayA managed front door for APIs: REST, HTTP and WebSocket APIs that take each call, check who is calling, throttle it, and pass it to Lambda, another service or any HTTP backend.
- CloudFrontA content delivery network: copies of your files are cached at edge locations near viewers, and requests that miss go back to your origin over the AWS network.
- Direct ConnectA private network connection from your premises into AWS through a Direct Connect location, reaching your VPCs and AWS services without crossing the internet.
- ELBSpreads incoming traffic across healthy targets in several Availability Zones, with four kinds of load balancer: Application, Network, Gateway and Classic.
- Internet GatewayThe door between a VPC and the internet. A subnet whose route table points at it is a public subnet.
- NAT GatewayLets instances in private subnets connect out, while nothing outside can start a connection to them.
- Route 53AWS's DNS service. It registers domains, answers queries for them with a choice of routing policies, and sends traffic away from endpoints that fail their health checks.
- Site-to-Site VPNEncrypted IPsec tunnels over the internet between your own network and your VPCs, two to a connection, ending on a virtual private gateway or a transit gateway.
- VPCYour own private network in AWS: its address range, a subnet in each Availability Zone, and the rules for what reaches what.
Storage
- EBSBlock storage volumes for EC2 instances: a disk that outlives the instance, lives in one Availability Zone, and is backed up with snapshots.
- EFSA shared NFS file system that grows and shrinks by itself, mounted at once by many instances, containers and functions across the zones of a Region.
- S3Object storage for any amount of data: files kept as objects in buckets, designed for eleven nines of durability, and private until you grant access.
- S3 GlacierThree S3 storage classes for archives: Instant Retrieval, read in milliseconds; Flexible Retrieval, restored in minutes to hours; and Deep Archive, the lowest cost, restored within 12 to 48 hours.
Databases
- DynamoDBA serverless key-value and document database with single-digit millisecond responses at any scale, and DAX, its in-memory cache, for microseconds.
- ElastiCacheA managed in-memory cache, Valkey, Redis OSS or Memcached, that answers repeated reads from memory so the database behind it does less.
- RDS and AuroraManaged relational databases: six engines run for you, plus Aurora, AWS's own MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible engine, with standbys, replicas and backups built in.
Security, identity & compliance
- ACMIssues, stores and renews the TLS certificates for your load balancers and CloudFront distributions. Public certificates for those services cost nothing.
- IAMWho can do what to which AWS resource, and under what conditions. Every request to AWS is checked against it.
- KMSCreates and guards the keys that encrypt your data, lets a policy decide every use of them, and hands out data keys for envelope encryption.
- Secrets ManagerStores database passwords, API keys and tokens, hands the current one to applications when they run, and rotates them on a schedule.
- ShieldDDoS protection: Shield Standard guards every AWS customer against common network and transport layer attacks at no extra charge, and Shield Advanced adds more for the resources you choose.
- WAFA web application firewall that inspects the HTTP and HTTPS requests reaching CloudFront, a load balancer or an API, and allows, blocks or counts each one by your rules.
Application integration
Management & governance
More services are on the way.