Week 1 Worklog

Week 1 — Igniting the Cloud AI Journey: Onboarding to the AWS ecosystem, completing 5 credit-earning tasks, and building a solid cost monitoring foundation.

Week 1 Objectives

• Create and configure an AWS account, earning $200 in credits through hands-on tasks.
• Get acquainted with AWS global infrastructure and core services: EC2, S3, IAM, VPC, RDS, Lambda, and Bedrock.
• Establish a comprehensive cost monitoring and control system (AWS Budgets, CloudWatch, Cost Explorer).
• Master foundational concepts: Cloud Computing models, AWS security, identity management (IAM), and networking (VPC).

Week 1 Schedule

Task Details

Day 1 — Monday (2), 20/04/2026: Account Activation & Completing 5 Tasks

Creating an AWS Account — Earning $100 Credit

The very first step of this journey was registering for an AWS account. Upon successful creation and identity verification, the account automatically received $100 in starter credits from AWS.

Task 1: Launch EC2 Instance +$20 Credit

Objective: Create and manage a Virtual Machine on AWS Cloud.

EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) is AWS’s flagship compute service, enabling the launch of virtual servers with flexible hardware configurations and operating systems.

Steps:

1. Go to AWS Console → “Explore AWS” widget → Select Launch an instance using EC2.
2. Click Start activity.
3. Set Instance name: Test Instance → Choose an appropriate AMI.
4. Keep default hardware configuration.
5. Create a new Key Pair: Name first-kp | Type RSA | Format .pem
6. Create a Security Group with default rules.
7. Review settings → Launch Instance.
8. Clean up: Terminate the instance after completion to avoid ongoing charges.

Key Takeaway: Always clean up resources immediately after practice to optimize costs.

Task 2: Amazon Bedrock Playground +$20 Credit

Objective: Experience AI/ML with Foundation Models on AWS.

Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service providing access to leading foundation models (Claude, Llama, Titan, etc.) through a unified API — no infrastructure management required.

Steps:

1. Access Bedrock Console → Select task Use a foundation model in Amazon Bedrock.
2. Select model: Claude 3 Haiku (ideal balance between performance and cost).
3. Fill in use case details and submit, then await approval. If encountering an authorization error, raise an AWS Support Case (Category: Bedrock Allowlisting).
4. Once approved: Write a test prompt → Run → Review response → Finish.

Key Takeaway: Some AWS AI services require use case approval before activation — a Responsible AI measure to prevent misuse.

Task 3: Set up AWS Budgets +$20 Credit

Objective: Establish a cost monitoring and alerting system.

AWS Budgets allows setting cost thresholds with automatic notifications — an essential tool for financial governance on the cloud.

Steps:

1. Access Budgets Console → Select task Set up a cost budget using AWS Budgets.
2. Click Start activity → Configure budget parameters.
3. Enter notification email address → Create budget.
4. Budget created successfully with automated email alerts.

Task 4: Create Lambda Web App +$20 Credit

Objective: Build a serverless web application on AWS.

AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service — run code without managing servers, paying only for actual execution time.

Steps:

1. Access Lambda Console → Select task Create a web app using AWS Lambda.
2. Click Start activity → Choose Use a blueprint → Getting started with Lambda HTTP.
3. Set function name: http-function-url-tutorial.
4. Check Acknowledgment → Create function successfully.
5. Clean up: Delete the function after completion.

Key Takeaway: Serverless architecture completely eliminates the need for server provisioning — ideal for workloads with unpredictable traffic patterns.

Task 5: Create RDS Database +$20 Credit

Objective: Set up a managed relational database on AWS.

Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service) manages the entire database lifecycle — backups, patching, scaling — freeing developers to focus on application logic.

Steps:

1. Access RDS Console → Select task Create an Amazon RDS Database.
2. Choose Easy create → Select engine: Aurora (PostgreSQL Compatible).
3. Create database → Wait for status to change to Available.
4. Clean up (in order): Delete instance database-1-instance-1 first, then delete cluster database-1.

Note: Always delete the instance before the cluster to avoid dependency errors.

Day 2 — Wednesday (4), 22/04/2026: Monitoring, Analytics & Foundational Theory

Basic Monitoring — Cost Control Setup

1. AWS Budgets (3-tier alert system)

2. Billing Alerts via CloudWatch Alarms

3. Cost Explorer

• Enable daily cost reports for real-time spending visibility.
• Set up service-level breakdown — analyze costs per service.
• Monitor top 5 cost drivers to quickly identify the largest expense sources.

Advanced Analytics

Custom CloudWatch Metrics: Create custom metrics to monitor business-specific indicators beyond AWS default metrics.

Resource Tagging Strategy: Apply consistent tags across all AWS resources to accurately allocate costs by team, project, and environment (dev/staging/prod).

Emergency Cost Control Protocol

Immediate Resource Audit: Inventory all running resources when abnormal costs are detected.

Emergency Shutdown Protocol: A procedure to rapidly shut down non-essential resources to prevent runaway costs — especially critical in a learning environment.

Foundational Knowledge

Cloud Computing Overview:

• Benefits of cloud computing: elasticity, pay-as-you-go, global reach.
• Service models: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS.
• Deployment models: Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Cloud.

AWS Global Infrastructure:

• Regions: Geographically isolated areas (~30+ regions worldwide).
• Availability Zones (AZs): Separate data centers within a Region, ensuring High Availability.
• Edge Locations: Content distribution points (CDN) for CloudFront, reducing latency globally.

AWS Security:

• Root Account: Highest-privilege account — use only for initial setup, always protect with MFA.
• IAM Users/Groups/Policies: Fine-grained permissions following the Least Privilege principle.
• MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication): Mandatory for Root and high-privilege IAM users.

Cost Management:

• AWS Free Tier: 12 months of free usage for eligible services.
• AWS Budgets: Proactive cost alerting.
• Cost Explorer: Analyze spending trends over time by service.

Core Services:

• Amazon S3: Object storage with 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability.
• Amazon EC2: Flexible compute with diverse instance types.

Topics Learned

Week 1 Achievements

• AWS Account successfully created and configured with full security (MFA, IAM).
• $200 AWS Credits accumulated: $100 starter from AWS + $100 from 5 hands-on tasks.
• 5 core AWS services practiced hands-on: EC2, Bedrock, Budgets, Lambda, RDS.
• 3-layer cost monitoring system established: Budgets → CloudWatch Alarms → Cost Explorer.
• Solid theoretical foundation built: Cloud Computing, AWS Global Infrastructure, IAM, Networking.
• Understood and applied the “Clean up after practice” principle — always clean up resources after hands-on labs.

Primary Reference: First Cloud Journey — AWS Study Group