My Journey to AWS (Part 1) | Learning IAM – A Beginner’s Starting Point

My Journey to AWS - Akramul Hasan

If you’re looking to learn a new skill and open doors to an exciting IT career, AWS (Amazon Web Services) is one of the best places to start. I recently began my journey to learning AWS, and I’m already seeing how valuable and practical this skill can be. Though its has passed only first week, therefore I thought I’d share a bit about my experience so far and what I’ve learned, especially for beginners like me.

Why AWS?

AWS is the world’s leading cloud platform, offering services that allow businesses to host websites, store data, manage databases, and much more. The cloud has taken over the IT world, and AWS is at the center of it. Learning AWS means staying relevant and opening up opportunities for high-demand jobs.

My Starting Point

I started by a very basic and short fundamental course on Linkedin. I expressed it here. To go in more deep, I enrolled in an AWS course on Udemy. The course introduced me to the basics of AWS:

  • How AWS works
  • The benefits of using AWS: Cost-effectiveness, scalability, and flexibility.

It made me realize how businesses can save time and money by hosting their data and applications on AWS instead of traditional servers.

The First AWS Service I Learned: IAM

IAM, or Identity and Access Management, is the backbone of security in AWS. It allows you to control who can access your AWS resources and what they can do with them. Here’s a simple breakdown of IAM:

  1. Creating Users: I learned how to create AWS users who can log in and access specific services.
  2. Grouping Users: Instead of managing permissions for each user, you can group users together (e.g., Admins, Developers) and assign permissions to the group.
  3. Assigning Policies: Policies define what permissions a user or group has. For example:
    • Allowing read-only access to an S3 bucket
    • Allowing full access to EC2 instances
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My Note on IAM

This was a great first step because IAM is used in almost every AWS service. It helped me understand the importance of managing access and keeping AWS secure.

My Experience So Far

So far, the process has been enjoyable and practical. The hands-on approach in the course made it easy to follow, even with no prior experience. Learning IAM gave me a sense of how powerful AWS is in managing users and security.

What’s Next?

I plan to explore more AWS services like:

  • EC2: To host servers on AWS
  • S3: To store and manage files in the cloud
  • RDS: To work with cloud-based databases

I will continue to document my progress so that anyone starting from scratch can follow along and feel encouraged to take the first step.

Final Thoughts for Beginners

If you’re new to AWS, here’s my advice:

  1. Start with the basics – Understand how AWS works.
  2. Learn IAM first – It’s a great way to get familiar with managing users and permissions.
  3. Use hands-on tutorials – Courses like those on Udemy provide practical steps to follow.

Learning AWS can seem overwhelming at first, but step by step, it becomes manageable and exciting. If you’re considering starting your AWS journey, now is the perfect time!

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