Preface

This book will focus on the revised version of the AWS Certified Developer Associate exam. The June 2019 version of this exam guide includes all the recent services and offerings from Amazon that benefit developers.

AWS Certified Developer – Associate Guide, Second Edition starts with a quick introduction to AWS and its prerequisites to get you started. Then, this book will describe Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Next, this book will teach you about microservices, serverless architecture, security best practices, advanced deployment methods, and more. Moving ahead, we will take you through AWS DynamoDB (a NoSQL database service), Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) and CloudFormation. Finally, this book will help you to understand Elastic Beanstalk and will also walk you through AWS Lambda.

By the end of this book, we will cover enough topics and tips and tricks, along with mock tests for you to be able to pass the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam, and go on to develop and manage your applications on the AWS platform.

Who this book is for

This book is for IT professionals and developers looking to clear the 2019 AWS Certified Developer Associate exam. Developers looking to develop and manage their applications on the AWS platform will also find this book useful. No prior AWS experience is needed.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Overview of AWS Certified Developer – Associate Certification, discusses the official blueprint that is published by Amazon for each certification exam. This blueprint explains the scope of the exam, the prerequisites to attend the exam, and the knowledge that is required to successfully complete the exam. This chapter outlines the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam and highlights the critical aspects, knowledge area, and services covered in the blueprint.

Chapter 2, Understanding the Fundamentals of Amazon Web Services, discusses the fundamentals of AWS. The chapter starts with a basic understanding of what a cloud is and takes you through a brief journey of familiarizing you with the basic building blocks of AWS. It highlights some of the critical aspects of how AWS works and provides an overview of AWS' core infrastructure.

Chapter 3, Identity and Access Management (IAM), discusses IAM in detail. IAM is one of the core and most critical services of AWS. IAM provides a very strong backbone to control the security of the user infrastructure. This chapter covers all the critical aspects of the IAM service and provides you with an understanding of how to work with various features and functionalities of the IAM service.

Chapter 4, Virtual Private Clouds, discusses VPCs in detail. VPCs form the basic building blocks of networking on the AWS cloud. They enable the user to create a private network on the AWS infrastructure. This chapter explains how you can create a VPC and start building a secure network with a number of components of AWS networking services.

Chapter 5, Getting Started with Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), discusses EC2, which is a part of AWS' compute services. This chapter describes what EC2 is and how you can start provisioning servers with various Windows and Linux operating system flavors. It also demonstrates how you can connect and work with these servers. At the end of the chapter, you should be able to work and manage EC2 instances and different types of Elastic Block Storage (EBS), which is attached as a volume to EC2 instances.

Chapter 6, Handling Application Traffic with ELB, discusses Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) in detail. An ELB is a load balancing service that distributes incoming application traffic across multiple EC2 instances and increases the fault tolerance of an application. This chapter describes how to create an ELB, how an ELB works, and what the critical aspects of the ELB service are.

Chapter 7, Monitoring with CloudWatch, discusses Amazon CloudWatch. This is a monitoring service for AWS cloud resources and the applications you run on AWS. This chapter describes how you can use Amazon CloudWatch to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, set alarms, and automatically react to changes in your AWS resources.

Chapter 8, Simple Storage Service, Glacier, and CloudFront, provides an explanation of Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), Glacier, and CloudFront services. The chapter, after discussing S3, explains the cheaper, archival storage that is Glacier and, finally, takes you through CloudFront – a Content Distribution Network (CDN) service.

Chapter 9, Other AWS Storage Options, touches on the AWS Storage Gateway service, which is a network appliance or a server residing at a customer's premises. It provides an overview of AWS Snowball, which is a service that accelerates the transfer of large amounts of data into and out of AWS using physical storage appliances. It also provides a basic understanding of AWS Snowmobile, which is an Exabyte-scale data transfer service used to move extremely large amounts of data to and from AWS.

Chapter 10, AWS Relational Database Services, provides an understanding of AWS Relation Database Service (RDS). It explains different types of engines that are supported by AWS RDS and how to efficiently and effectively create and manage RDS instances on the AWS cloud.

Chapter 11, AWS DynamoDB – A NoSQL Database Service, explores Amazon DynamoDB, which is a fully-managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. This chapter describes various components of DynamoDB, along with the best practices to manage it.

Chapter 12, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), examines SQS, which is a distributed message queuing service. This chapter provides understanding of what SQS is, and explains how you can create and manage it with relevant examples.

Chapter 13, Simple Notification Service (SNS), describes SNS, which is a fully-managed messaging service that can be used to send messages, alarms, and notifications from various AWS services (such as Amazon RDS, CloudWatch, and S3) to other AWS services (such as SQS and Lambda).

Chapter 14, Simple Workflow Service (SWF), examines Amazon SWF in detail. SWF is a web service that makes it easy to coordinate work across distributed application components. This chapter provides a basic understanding of SWF, its various components, and how to use them.

Chapter 15, CloudFormation Overview, provides an overview of the AWS CloudFormation service. CloudFormation is a service that helps you to model and set up your AWS resources. The CloudFormation template provides a simple and efficient way to manage your resources in the AWS cloud.

Chapter 16, Understanding Elastic Beanstalk, discusses Elastic Beanstalk – an orchestration service that makes it easier for developers to quickly deploy and manage applications in the AWS Cloud. This chapter offers an introduction to Elastic Beanstalk and describes how you can create and manage applications using the service.

Chapter 17, Overview of AWS Lambda, explores Lambda, which is an event-driven, serverless computing platform. This chapter provides an overview of Lambda and describes how it runs code in response to events and automatically manages the compute resources that are required by that code.

Chapter 18, Key Management Service (KMS), describes AWS KMS in detail. KMS is a scalable encryption and key management service that is provided by Amazon. As the name suggests, KMS can be used for encrypting data and managing encryption keys. This chapter introduces you to KMS and explains how you can use it with other AWS services.

Chapter 19, Working with AWS Kinesis, discusses Kinesis—an easy-to-use real-time data collection, processing, analysis, and data streaming service.

Chapter 20, Working with AWS CodeBuild, explores CodeBuild, which is a fully managed build service by Amazon. It can compile and test source code, making it ready to deploy in your projects. This chapter explains what CodeBuild is and demonstrates how you can use it.

Chapter 21, Getting Started with AWS CodeDeploy, explores CodeDeploy, which is a fully managed build service by Amazon. It can be used to automate code deployment to any instance on an AWS EC2 or on-premises environment. This chapter introduces you to CodeDeploy and describes how to use CodeDeploy in your development projects.

Chapter 22, Working with AWS CodePipeline, describes CodePipeline, which can be used to facilitate Continuous Deployment (CD) on AWS. It can be used to automate the software deployment process, allowing a developer to quickly model, visualize, and deliver code for new feature updates. This chapter introduces you to CodePipeline and describes how you can use it in your development projects.

Chapter 23, CI/CD on AWS, examines Continuous Integration (CI) and CD. CI/CD is a mechanism that is used to optimize and automate the development life cycle. This chapter introduces you to CI/CD on AWS and describes how you can use it for your AWS workloads.

Chapter 24, Serverless Computing, explores serverless computing. This is a mechanism that is used to run applications without provisioning, maintaining, and administering the computer or storage resources to run the applications. This chapter introduces you to serverless computing, as well as a number of services that AWS provides in order to run your workloads serverlessly.

Chapter 25, Amazon Route 53, describes Amazon Route 53, which is a highly-available and scalable cloud Domain Name System (DNS) web service. This chapter introduces you to the service and describes various components of the service.

Chapter 26, ElastiCache Overview, examines ElastiCache, which is an AWS service that provides caching mechanisms using Redis and Memcached on the AWS environment. This chapter gives you an overview of ElastiCache and describes how you can use Redis and Memcached engine types.

Chapter 27, Mock Tests, contains two mock tests for you to test your knowledge. It tries to cover all the topics that can be expected in the exam in order to challenge your understanding of them. Each test contains 60 questions; you should try to complete each test in 90 minutes.

Chapter 28, Exploring AWS CodeCommit, explores CodeCommit in detail. CodeCommit provides a fully managed, scalable, and private Git repository service. Anything from code to binaries can be stored in the CodeCommit repositories. This chapter explains what CodeCommit is and demonstrates how you can use it for creating and managing code repositories in AWS. This chapter is available online at https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Exploring_AWS_CodeCommit.pdf.

To get the most out of this book

As the practical examples involve the use of AWS, an AWS account is required.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781789617313_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "This specifies the action type, either Allow or Deny access."

A block of code is set as follows:

aws s3api put-bucket-tagging --bucket <Bucket> --tagging 'TagSet=[{Key=<key>,Value=<value>}]'

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

<!-- Sample policy -->
<CORSConfiguration>
<CORSRule>
<AllowedOrigin>*</AllowedOrigin>
<AllowedMethod>GET</AllowedMethod>
<MaxAgeSeconds>3000</MaxAgeSeconds>
<AllowedHeader>Authorization</AllowedHeader>
</CORSRule>
</CORSConfiguration>

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

 $ pip install --upgrade --user awscli

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Depending on your preference, you can select Current version or Previous versions, or both, as required."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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