AWS Cloud

Amazon Comprehend

Sentiment, entities, key phrases, syntax.

Amazon Polly + Transcribe

Neural voices + streaming transcription. Multilingual.

Amazon Rekognition

Face detection + object recognition + moderation.

Amazon Textract

OCR + tables + forms. Better than raw OCR.

Amazon Aurora

5x MySQL, 3x Postgres perf. Serverless. Global DB.

Aurora Serverless v2

Scale from 0.5 to 128 ACUs. Pay per second. Modern serverless DB.

Auto Scaling Groups

Launch templates + scaling policies. Match capacity to demand.

AMI Lifecycle

Bake vs configure at boot. Packer + EC2 Image Builder.

AWS API Gateway -- the managed front door for APIs

Deep-dive on AWS API Gateway: the managed front-door role, REST vs HTTP APIs (features vs cost/latency), integrations (Lambda/HTTP/AWS services), auth…

AWS App Runner

Point at repo/image, App Runner runs it. Auto scale + HTTPS.

AWS Athena

How Athena provides SQL on S3 without infrastructure.

Amazon Aurora storage architecture

Deep-dive on Aurora's storage layer: 10GB protection groups, six-way three-AZ quorums, VCL/VDL commit semantics, storage-node…

AWS Batch

Job queues + compute environments. HPC + ML training patterns.

AWS Batch Multi-Node Jobs

Distribute jobs across many EC2. MPI + tightly-coupled compute.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Upload code, Beanstalk deploys. Simpler than EC2 + LB manual.

AWS Bedrock

How Bedrock provides managed access to foundation models.

AWS Bedrock

Claude, Llama, Mistral, Titan, others via unified API.

AWS CDK

TypeScript/Python/Java/Go/.NET generate CloudFormation.

AWS Client VPN + Site-to-Site VPN

OpenVPN-based client + IPsec site-to-site.

AWS CloudFront

How CloudFront distributes content globally via edge locations.

AWS CloudTrail

Every API call recorded. Compliance foundation.

Amazon Cognito

User Pools (identity) + Identity Pools (AWS access).

AWS Config

Track resource state over time. Compliance rules.

AWS Control Tower

Automated multi-account setup with governance baseline.

AWS Data Lake Architecture in Depth

A 2500-word walkthrough of AWS data lake: ingest, S3 raw/curated, Glue Catalog, Lake Formation, ETL, Athena, BI, observability, cost governance.

AWS DataSync

Managed transfer service. On-prem ↔ AWS + intra-AWS.

AWS DataZone

How DataZone provides data governance + catalog across accounts.

AWS DynamoDB

How DynamoDB provides serverless NoSQL with predictable performance, why partition keys matter, and how streams enable event-driven patterns.

DynamoDB architecture

Deep-dive on DynamoDB: partition key, GSI/LSI, capacity modes, auto-scale, streams, TTL, global tables, access, metrics.

AWS EBS

How EBS provides persistent block storage for EC2: volume types, snapshots, encryption.

AWS EC2

How EC2 provisions virtual machines: instance types, AMIs, EBS, placement groups, and the operational patterns for running fleets.

AWS EC2 Instance Types

The EC2 instance type families (general, compute, memory, GPU, storage) and how to choose.

AWS ECS

How ECS runs containers: EC2 launch type vs Fargate, task definitions, services.

AWS ECS / Fargate -- running containers without managing servers

Deep-dive on AWS ECS/Fargate: the run-containers-without-server-ops need, task definitions (blueprint), services (declarative desired count/scaling), …

AWS EFS

How EFS provides managed NFS for multiple EC2 instances to share storage.

AWS EKS

How EKS provides managed Kubernetes with AWS integration.

AWS EMR

How EMR provides managed Hadoop + Spark + Presto.

Amazon EventBridge

Serverless event bus. Rules route to targets.

AWS EventBridge -- the serverless event bus for event-driven architecture

Deep-dive on AWS EventBridge: the central event bus, rules and content-based event patterns, targets and sources, schema registry, content filtering, …

AWS Fargate

Run containers without EC2 mgmt. ECS + EKS support. Pricing model.

AWS Glue

How Glue provides serverless ETL: crawlers, catalog, jobs.

AWS GuardDuty

ML-based anomaly detection. VPC Flow Logs + CloudTrail + DNS.

AWS IAM

How IAM controls access to every AWS API: users, groups, roles, policies, and how STS enables temporary credentials.

AWS IAM conditions architecture

Deep-dive on AWS IAM conditions: context keys, tag conditions, MFA + IP, SCP interaction, resource policies, boundaries, and policy simulator.

AWS IAM

Identity + permission model. Foundation of AWS security.

AWS Inferentia

Cheaper LLM inference. Inf1 + Inf2 instances.

AWS Inspector

EC2 + ECR + Lambda vulnerability assessment.

AWS Kinesis

The Kinesis family (Data Streams, Firehose, Analytics) for real-time data processing.

AWS Kinesis Architecture in Depth

A 2500-word walkthrough of AWS Kinesis: Data Streams, shards, retention, enhanced fan-out, Firehose, Managed Flink, auto-scale.

AWS KMS architecture

Deep-dive on AWS KMS: CMKs, envelope encryption, key policy + grants, aliases + rotation, Multi-Region keys, CloudHSM, CloudTrail.

AWS KMS

Managed encryption keys. Envelope encryption. HSM-backed.

AWS Lake Formation

Fine-grained access control on S3 data lakes.

AWS Lambda

How Lambda runs code without managing servers, cold starts, execution model, and the patterns that make Lambda work at scale.

Lambda architecture pattern

Deep-dive on Lambda architecture pattern: batch layer (exact/slow), speed layer (approximate/real-time), serving layer, Kappa alternative.

Lambda cold start architecture

Deep-dive on Lambda cold start: sandbox + runtime + function init phases, SnapStart, provisioned concurrency, VPC ENIs, and observability.

AWS Lambda

Event-driven functions. Micro-VM sandboxes. Cold starts + tuning.

AWS Macie

Find sensitive data in S3. ML classifiers. Compliance.

AWS MSK

How MSK provides managed Apache Kafka.

AWS Multi-Region Architecture in Depth

A 2500-word walkthrough of AWS multi-region: Route 53 routing, regional stacks, async data replication, failover, and global observability.

AWS Nitro System

Custom hardware + hypervisor. Enables Fargate + Bare Metal.

AWS OpenSearch

How OpenSearch provides managed search + observability.

AWS Organizations + Service Control Policies

Multi-account mgmt. SCPs as org-wide guardrails.

AWS Overview

What AWS is, how regions and availability zones organize its infrastructure, and how the service catalog composes into modern applications.

AWS PrivateLink

Endpoint to AWS/SaaS services without internet. Cross-VPC private access.

AWS RDS

How RDS manages database engines (Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server) with backups, HA, and read replicas.

AWS RDS

MySQL, Postgres, MariaDB, Oracle, SQL Server. Multi-AZ + read replicas.

AWS Redshift

How Redshift provides managed columnar data warehouse.

AWS Route 53

How Route 53 provides managed DNS with health checks and routing policies.

aws_route53_arch_2k

AWS S3

How S3 stores objects durably and at scale, storage classes, access patterns, and the operational realities of huge S3 workloads.

S3 architecture

Deep-dive on Amazon S3: buckets, storage classes, strong consistency, versioning, lifecycle, replication, encryption, access, analytics.

AWS SageMaker

How SageMaker provides end-to-end ML platform.

AWS Secrets Manager architecture

Deep-dive on AWS Secrets Manager: secret create, version staging, rotation Lambda, auto-generated passwords, multi-Region, audit.

AWS Secrets Manager Rotation

Automated password rotation. RDS + custom.

AWS Security Hub

Aggregates GuardDuty + Inspector + Macie + third-party. Compliance frameworks.

AWS Serverless Architecture in Depth

A 2500-word walkthrough of AWS serverless: API Gateway, Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, S3, Aurora Serverless, IAM, and observability.

AWS Shield

Standard (free) + Advanced (paid). Layer 3/4 + 7.

AWS Snow Family

Physical devices for extreme data transfer. Petabytes offline.

AWS SNS

How SNS provides managed pub/sub: topics, subscriptions, fan-out to SQS/Lambda/HTTP.

AWS SQS

How SQS provides managed message queues: standard vs FIFO, dead-letter, visibility timeout.

Amazon SQS architecture

Deep-dive on SQS: replicated queue storage and long polling, the visibility-timeout lease model, at-least-once delivery and idempotent consumers, FIFO…

AWS Step Functions

How Step Functions orchestrate workflows with state machines.

AWS Step Functions

Deep-dive on AWS Step Functions: ASL state machines, Task/Choice/Parallel/Map states, direct service integrations, declarative error handling (retry/c…

AWS Storage Gateway

File Gateway, Volume Gateway, Tape Gateway. Bridge on-prem to AWS.

aws_systems_manager

AWS Trainium

AWS's alternative to GPUs for training. Cheaper for supported models.

AWS VPC

How VPCs isolate network space in AWS: subnets, route tables, gateways, security groups, and NACLs.

AWS WAF

Filter HTTP traffic. Rate limit + injection defense.

AWS X-Ray

Trace requests across services. Service map.

AWS CloudFormation

Declare AWS resources in YAML/JSON. Stacks + templates.

CloudFront

Edge caching. Signed URLs. Lambda@Edge + Functions.

Amazon CloudWatch

Metrics, logs, alarms, dashboards, Contributor Insights.

CloudWatch Synthetics

Scheduled scripts checking site health. Alerting on failure.

AWS Direct Connect

Physical line to AWS. Consistent bandwidth + low latency.

Amazon DocumentDB

MongoDB API on AWS-managed backend.

DynamoDB (AWS)

Serverless NoSQL. Partition + sort key. Provisioned or on-demand.

EBS Volume Types

Right disk for right workload. IOPS vs throughput vs cost.

EC2 Instance Families

M/C/R/I/P/G/T families. Right instance for right workload.

EC2 Launch Templates

Replaces Launch Configurations. Versioned. Used by ASG + Fleet.

EC2 Placement Groups

Control physical placement for latency, availability, or spread.

EC2 Savings Plans + Reserved Instances

Commit for 1/3 years. 40-72% discount. RI vs Savings Plans.

EC2 Spot Instances

Bid on unused capacity. Interrupted with 2-min warning.

ECS vs EKS

AWS-native (ECS) vs Kubernetes (EKS). Trade-offs.

AWS EFS

Managed NFS. Multi-AZ. Auto-scaling. Use cases + gotchas.

EFS Intelligent-Tiering + Lifecycle

Auto-move cold files to IA class. Massive cost savings.

ElastiCache

Sub-ms cache. Redis clusters. Memcached simplicity.

ELB Family

Right load balancer for right protocol.

FSx for Lustre

High-throughput scratch storage. Attached to S3.

AWS Global Accelerator

Static IPs + edge routing. Reduce jitter + latency.

AWS Graviton

Custom ARM chips. 20-40% cheaper. Perf competitive with x86.

EC2 Instance Store

Fastest storage. Ephemeral. i3/i4i/im4gn/is4gen families.

Amazon Keyspaces

Serverless Cassandra API. CQL compatibility. Trade-offs.

Lambda Cold Starts

Init phase overhead. Language + package impact. Concrete mitigations.

NAT Gateway vs NAT Instance

Managed vs self-managed outbound internet from private subnet.

Amazon Neptune

Gremlin, SPARQL, openCypher. Relationship-heavy queries.

AWS Neuron SDK

Compiler + runtime for Trainium/Inferentia. Convert PyTorch models.

AWS Nitro Enclaves

Trusted computing on EC2. Attested. Confidential workload.

Amazon QuickSight

Serverless BI. SPICE in-memory. Q for NLQ.

Route 53

AWS DNS. Advanced routing: weighted, geo, latency, failover.

S3 Batch Operations

Copy, tag, restore, invoke Lambda across many objects.

S3 Encryption

Who holds keys + who encrypts. Choose per security policy.

S3 Lifecycle Policies

Rules to transition classes + expire objects. Foundation of cost management.

S3 Object Lock

WORM storage. Compliance mode. Governance mode.

S3 Cross-Region + Cross-Account Replication

Async copy to other buckets. DR + compliance + latency.

S3 Select

SQL over CSV/JSON/Parquet in S3. Reduce data transfer.

S3 Storage Classes

Class per access pattern. 30-95% cost differences.

S3 Transfer Acceleration + Multipart Uploads

Faster uploads via CloudFront edge. Multipart parallel.

S3 Versioning + MFA Delete

Object history. Ransomware defense. Enable early.

Amazon SageMaker

Notebooks, training, hyperparameter tuning, deployment.

SageMaker Endpoints

Real-time + async + serverless + batch inference.

Secrets Manager vs SSM Parameter Store

When to use each. Rotation + cost + features.

Amazon Timestream

Managed time-series. Serverless. Auto-tiering.

AWS Transit Gateway

Central hub. Simplifies mesh. Multi-region + multi-account.

AWS VPC

Isolated network. Subnets, route tables, IGW, NAT. Foundation of AWS networking.

VPC Flow Logs

Log every accepted/rejected connection. Debug + security.

VPC Peering

Point-to-point. No transit. Cross-region + cross-account.

VPC Subnets + Availability Zones

Subnet lives in one AZ. Multi-AZ = high availability.