Understanding Cloud Computing Essentials— From Zero to Hero

Cloud computing is the on-demand provision of IT infrastructure. Amazon Web Services provides various computing services, including Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Lambda.

In this Cloud Lab, you’ll explore the global infrastructure of AWS and discuss how it is organized in regions and availability zones. Next, you’ll create a new user with the required permissions and then log in with the new user to complete the rest of the lab. Moving on, you’ll explore the major computing services offered by AWS and the customization options these services provide. Moreover, you’ll use a storage service provided by AWS and understand how storage and compute resources work together. Lastly, you’ll explore web server hosting with compute instances while managing access and security through IAM policies and roles.

By the end of this Cloud Lab, you’ll be well-equipped to configure and deploy your own compute instances and develop an understanding of IAM roles, resource-based policies, and identity-based policies. Furthermore, you’ll learn to use storage instances with compute instances.

The following is the high-level architecture diagram of the final infrastructure that you will build in this Cloud Lab:

Why cloud computing fundamentals matter

Cloud computing isn’t just about using AWS or spinning up servers. It’s about a different way of designing and operating systems, one where infrastructure is elastic, services are managed, and failures are expected rather than exceptional.

Without a solid foundation, cloud services can feel overwhelming and unpredictable. With the fundamentals, you can reason about cost, scalability, reliability, and security before you ever choose a specific service.

The core cloud building blocks

Most cloud platforms expose similar primitives, even if the names differ:

• Compute: Virtual machines, containers, and serverless functions let you run code with varying levels of control and abstraction.

• Storage: Object, block, and file storage each solve different problems: durability, performance, or shared access.

• Networking: Virtual networks, routing, load balancing, and security rules determine how services communicate and how users reach your applications.

• Managed services: Databases, queues, analytics, and AI services shift operational responsibility from you to the cloud provider.

Cloud-native principles to understand early

Beyond individual services, cloud systems are shaped by a few key principles:

• Elasticity: Scale resources up and down as demand changes.

• Pay-as-you-go: Cost is tied to usage, not the capacity you pre-purchase.

• High availability by design: Assume failures and design for them.

• Automation: Infrastructure and operations are driven by code and APIs.

Understanding these principles helps you choose the right services and architectures rather than mindlessly copying patterns.

How cloud concepts show up in real architectures

Once you understand the basics, many common architectures make sense:

• Stateless app tiers behind load balancers.

• Managed databases instead of self-hosted ones.

• Event-driven systems using queues and functions.

• Multi-region or multi-AZ designs for resilience.

• CI/CD pipelines that automatically provision and deploy infrastructure.

Cloud computing isn’t about memorizing services, it’s about understanding why these patterns exist.

What to focus on as a beginner

If you’re starting from zero, prioritize:

• How traffic flows through a cloud system.

• Where the state lives (and why it’s separated from compute).

• How scaling and availability are achieved.

• How security boundaries are enforced.

• How cost accumulates over time.

These questions come up regardless of the cloud provider or tooling.