Leanpub Header

Skip to main content

The Practical AWS Guide

Design, Build, Secure, Automate, and Operate Production-Grade Workloads on Amazon Web Services

This book is 100% completeLast updated on 2026-07-03
Whether you're launching your first AWS workload or operating systems at enterprise scale, The Practical AWS Guide delivers a hands-on roadmap to designing, building, securing, automating, and running production-grade solutions on Amazon Web Services. From foundational cloud concepts to advanced architectures spanning networking, compute, storage, serverless, AI/ML, DevOps, observability,…

Minimum price

$19.00

$29.00

You pay

Author earns

$

Also available for 1 book credit with a Reader Membership

PDF
EPUB
About

About

About the Book

This book takes you from cloud fundamentals through advanced architecture patterns across every major AWS service domain. You will learn how to design secure multi-account environments, build resilient networking with VPC and Transit Gateway, choose the right compute and storage for each workload, implement automated CI/CD pipelines, architect serverless applications, deploy AI/ML solutions with Bedrock and SageMaker, optimize costs with FinOps practices, build production-grade observability, govern at enterprise scale, and troubleshoot real-world problems. Every chapter includes concrete examples, architecture decisions, best practices drawn from AWS documentation and community experience, and actionable recommendations you can apply immediately. Whether you are preparing for an AWS certification or designing your next production workload, this book gives you the practical knowledge to move confidently from concept to deployment.

Share this book

Bundle

Bundles that include this book

Author

About the Author

Steve T. Publications

Steve T. is a cybersecurity leader, researcher, and engineer with more than 20 years of experience across application security, infrastructure security, vulnerability management, software development, and secure engineering practices. Having built his career alongside the growth of the modern internet, he has worked through multiple generations of technology, evolving security threats, and changing development methodologies.

He is currently part of the advanced research organization at a leading cybersecurity company, where he focuses on emerging threats, security innovation, and the practical application of research. His work involves investigating new attack techniques, evaluating emerging technologies, conducting deep technical analysis, and helping organizations better understand and manage complex security risks.

In addition to his research responsibilities, Steve leads a team of senior engineers and subject matter experts who create technical books, training programs, and educational resources for security professionals. Through this work, he helps engineers, developers, architects, and security practitioners strengthen their skills and build more secure systems.

Steve's technical expertise spans software development, reverse engineering, web application security, penetration testing, security architecture, incident response, vulnerability research, operating system internals, and secure software development. His ability to analyze systems at both the source code and binary levels enables him to bridge the worlds of software engineering, security research, and practical defense.

Over the course of his career, Steve has worked with organizations across a wide range of industries, helping them identify, assess, and remediate security weaknesses in critical applications and infrastructure. He is recognized for combining deep technical expertise with a pragmatic approach to security, focusing on solutions that are effective, sustainable, and aligned with business goals.

Through his work in research, engineering, leadership, and education, Steve continues to contribute to the advancement of cybersecurity and the development of secure, resilient technology systems.

Contents

Table of Contents

Design, Build, Secure, Automate, and Operate Production-Grade Workloads on Amazon Web Services

Introduction: The Cloud Is Not a Place, It Is a Discipline

Chapter 1: Cloud Foundations — Why AWS, How AWS Works

  1. What Is Cloud Computing? IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS Compared
  2. Why AWS Leads the Market
  3. The Global Infrastructure: Regions, Availability Zones, and Edge Locations
  4. The Shared Responsibility Model
  5. Core AWS Concepts: Accounts, APIs, SDKs, and the CLI
  6. The Well-Architected Framework

Chapter 2: Identity and Access Management — Security by Design

  1. IAM Hierarchy: Users, Groups, Roles, and Policies
  2. Policy Language: JSON Documents, Conditions, and Effects
  3. Federation and Workforce Identity: IAM Identity Center
  4. IAM Roles for AWS Services
  5. Least Privilege in Practice
  6. MFA, Password Policies, and Access Key Management
  7. Organizations, SCPs, and Multi-Account Strategy

Chapter 3: Networking and Connectivity — VPC Deep Dive

  1. VPC Architecture: CIDR Blocks, Subnets, and Route Tables
  2. Internet Gateways, NAT Gateways, and Outbound Connectivity
  3. VPC Endpoints: Interface and Gateway Types
  4. Security Groups vs. Network ACLs
  5. Peering, Transit Gateway, VPN, and Direct Connect
  6. Route 53: DNS Management and Routing Policies

Chapter 4: Compute — EC2, Lambda, Containers, and Beyond

  1. EC2 Instance Families and Selection
  2. Purchasing Options: On-Demand, Reserved, Spot, and Savings Plans
  3. Auto Scaling and Capacity Planning
  4. Lambda: Serverless Compute Patterns
  5. Container Orchestration: ECS vs. EKS
  6. Choosing the Right Compute for Your Workload

Chapter 5: Storage — The AWS Storage Hierarchy

  1. Object Storage: S3 Classes and Lifecycle Management
  2. Block Storage: EBS Types and Performance
  3. File Storage: EFS and FSx
  4. Bridging On-Premises and Cloud: Storage Gateway
  5. Security, Encryption, and Access Control

Chapter 6: Databases — Relational, NoSQL, Warehousing, and Caching

  1. RDS and Aurora: Architecture and Selection
  2. DynamoDB: Capacity Modes and Patterns
  3. Redshift: Data Warehousing and Spectrum
  4. ElastiCache: In-Memory Caching
  5. Migration Strategies with DMS and SCT

Chapter 7: DevOps and Automation — CI/CD, IaC, and GitOps

  1. Infrastructure as Code: CloudFormation, CDK, and Terraform
  2. AWS CDK Deep Dive
  3. CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy
  4. Deployment Strategies: Blue/Green, Canary, and Rolling
  5. Testing Infrastructure with Guard and cfn-lint

Chapter 8: Serverless Architecture Patterns

  1. Event-Driven Architecture Principles
  2. API Gateway: REST, HTTP, and WebSocket APIs
  3. Lambda Function Design and Optimization
  4. Step Functions: State Machines and Workflows
  5. The Messaging Backbone: SNS, SQS, and EventBridge
  6. Streaming with Kinesis

Chapter 9: AI, ML, and Generative AI on AWS

  1. SageMaker: Training, Hosting, and Pipelines
  2. Bedrock: Foundation Models and RAG Patterns
  3. Applied AI Services: Rekognition, Transcribe, Translate
  4. Building AI Applications: Architecture Patterns
  5. Cost and Performance Considerations

Chapter 10: Monitoring, Logging, and Observability

  1. CloudWatch: Metrics, Logs, Dashboards, and Alarms
  2. X-Ray: Distributed Tracing with OpenTelemetry
  3. Container Insights for ECS and EKS
  4. Log Management Strategies
  5. Alerting Best Practices and Runbooks

Chapter 11: Cost Optimization and Financial Operations

  1. Pricing Models Explained
  2. Right-Sizing Compute and Storage
  3. Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and Spot
  4. Storage Tiering and Data Transfer Costs
  5. Tagging, Allocation, and FinOps Practices

Chapter 12: Governance, Compliance, and Multi-Account Strategy

  1. AWS Organizations: Management Accounts and OUs
  2. Control Tower: Landing Zones and Guardrails
  3. AWS Config: Rules and Conformance Packs
  4. Security Hub, GuardDuty, Macie, and Inspector
  5. Compliance Frameworks and Data Residency

Chapter 13: Real-World Deployment Strategies and Case Studies

  1. Three-Tier Web Application Architecture
  2. E-Commerce Platform: High Availability and Scaling
  3. Data Pipeline Architecture
  4. Migration Strategies: Lift-and-Shift to Refactor
  5. Disaster Recovery Patterns

Chapter 14: Troubleshooting and Operational Excellence

  1. Systematic Troubleshooting Methodology
  2. Networking Troubleshooting
  3. Compute Troubleshooting
  4. Storage Troubleshooting
  5. Database Troubleshooting
  6. IAM and Access Debugging

Chapter 15: Certification Paths and Career Growth

  1. AWS Certification Landscape
  2. Solutions Architect Path
  3. DevOps Engineer Path
  4. Specialty Certifications
  5. Building a Lab Environment for Practice
  6. Real-World Experience vs. Certification
  7. Continuing Education and Staying Current

Conclusion: The Cloud Journey Ahead

References

Get the free sample chapters

Click the buttons to get the free sample in PDF or EPUB, or read the sample online here

The Leanpub 60 Day 100% Happiness Guarantee

Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.

See full terms...

Earn $8 on a $10 Purchase, and $16 on a $20 Purchase

We pay 80% royalties on purchases of $7.99 or more, and 80% royalties minus a 50 cent flat fee on purchases between $0.99 and $7.98. You earn $8 on a $10 sale, and $16 on a $20 sale. So, if we sell 5000 non-refunded copies of your book for $20, you'll earn $80,000.

(Yes, some authors have already earned much more than that on Leanpub.)

In fact, authors have earned over $15 million writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub.

Learn more about writing on Leanpub

Free Updates. DRM Free.

If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).

Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.

Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.

Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them

Write and Publish on Leanpub

You can use Leanpub to easily write, publish and sell in-progress and completed ebooks and online courses!

Leanpub is a powerful platform for serious authors, combining a simple, elegant writing and publishing workflow with a store focused on selling in-progress ebooks.

Leanpub is a magical typewriter for authors: just write in plain text, and to publish your ebook, just click a button. (Or, if you are producing your ebook your own way, you can even upload your own PDF and/or EPUB files and then publish with one click!) It really is that easy.

Learn more about writing on Leanpub