BeginnerAWSUpdated 2026-05-01

AWS Services Roadmap

What You Will Learn

AWS has many services, but developers do not need to learn everything at once. This roadmap gives a practical order for learning the services used most in real applications.

Prerequisites

  • Basic networking knowledge
  • Linux basics
  • One application you can deploy

Concept Overview

AWS services are building blocks. IAM handles identity, VPC handles networking, compute runs applications, storage keeps data, and monitoring tells you what is happening.

Step-by-Step Learning Path

  1. IAM: users, roles, policies, and least privilege.
  2. S3: object storage and static assets.
  3. EC2: virtual machines and server deployment.
  4. VPC: subnets, route tables, internet gateways, NAT gateways, and security groups.
  5. RDS: managed relational databases.
  6. ECR and ECS: container registry and container deployment.
  7. Lambda and API Gateway: serverless functions and HTTP APIs.
  8. CloudFront and Route 53: CDN and DNS.
  9. CloudWatch and CloudTrail: logs, metrics, alarms, and audit events.
  10. Secrets Manager and Parameter Store: application configuration and secrets.

Code Example

BASH
aws sts get-caller-identity
aws ec2 describe-instances \
  --filters "Name=instance-state-name,Values=running" \
  --query "Reservations[].Instances[].{Id:InstanceId,Type:InstanceType,AZ:Placement.AvailabilityZone}"
aws cloudwatch describe-alarms --state-value ALARM

Real-World Use Cases

  • Hosting Java APIs
  • Deploying React frontends
  • Running containerized microservices
  • Building serverless APIs
  • Managing production logs and alerts

Best Practices

  • Start with IAM and billing alerts before deploying resources.
  • Use separate environments for dev, staging, and production.
  • Avoid public databases.
  • Use security groups carefully.
  • Automate infrastructure when the architecture stabilizes.
  • Monitor cost, logs, metrics, and error rates.

Common Mistakes

  • Learning services randomly without architecture context
  • Using root account access keys
  • Opening ports to the whole internet
  • Forgetting to stop unused resources
  • Ignoring monitoring until production fails

Interview Questions

  • What is IAM least privilege?
  • What is the difference between EC2 and Lambda?
  • Why use a VPC?
  • What is the role of CloudFront?
  • How does ECS use ECR?

Summary

Learn AWS in layers: identity, storage, compute, networking, database, deployment, and monitoring. That order maps closely to real production systems.