Meet AWS

Inkwell has chosen a public cloud: Amazon Web Services. Opening the AWS console for the first time is overwhelming. There are hundreds of services with names like EC2, S3 and IAM. The good news is that they all follow the same few ideas, and a beginner needs only a handful to run a real website.

The rule

One account, many services, four doors, one bill.

• One account. Everything you create lives in an AWS account. The account is the boundary for billing and, by default, for security. Big companies use many accounts; Inkwell starts with one.
• Many services. AWS is a catalogue of building blocks, each doing one job. The core ones in this course are EC2 (virtual servers), VPC (your private network), IAM (who may do what) and S3 (file storage). Most services are regional: you choose where they run, such as the Mumbai Region, ap-south-1.
• Four doors. You reach every service through the same API, using one of four doors: the Management Console (web pages), the AWS CLI (commands), the SDKs (libraries for Python, JavaScript, Java and more), or infrastructure as code such as AWS CloudFormation (a file describing what you want).
• One bill. Usage from every service lands on the account's monthly bill, metered per second, per gigabyte or per request.

That one line asks the same API the console uses: "list my servers in Mumbai".

AWS also publishes the Well-Architected Framework, a checklist of good design grouped into six pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimisation and sustainability. You do not need it on day one, but its questions are worth knowing.

The shortcut

For any new service, ask the three placing questions: What one job does it do? Which Region is it in? How is it billed? Answer those and the service stops being a mystery name.

The trap on day one is money, not technology. A server left running after a tutorial keeps billing. Before building anything, create an AWS Budget with an email alert so a forgotten resource cannot surprise you.

Drills

Answer fast — trust the rule.

Remember

• One account, many services, four doors (console, CLI, SDKs, infrastructure as code), one bill.
• Shortcut for any new service: what job, which Region, how billed.
• Trap: forgotten resources keep billing; set a budget alert first.