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Dipali Kulshrestha
Dipali Kulshrestha

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3-Day Hands-On Training: Developing on AWS

Audience

  • Application Developers (Java / .NET / Node / Python)
  • Senior Engineers transitioning to AWS
  • Cloud-native & modernization teams

Pre-requisites

  • Basic programming experience
  • Basic understanding of web apps & REST APIs
  • Optional: AWS Cloud Practitioner–level awareness

Delivery Format

  • 30% Concepts
  • 70% Hands-on Labs
  • Each module → Concepts → Demo → Lab → Review

DAY 1 – Core AWS Development Foundations

Module 1: AWS Development Environment

Concepts

  • AWS Global Infrastructure (Regions, AZs)
  • Shared Responsibility Model (Developer focus)
  • AWS SDKs & CLI

Hands-On Lab

  • Configure AWS CLI & SDK
  • Access S3 using SDK (Java/Python)

Outcome
✔ Application access using Application codes
✔ No hard-coded credentials

Module 2: Compute Options for Developers

Concepts

  • EC2 vs Lambda vs Containers (when to use what)
  • Amazon EC2 fundamentals
  • Auto Scaling basics
  • Load Balancer overview (ALB)

Hands-On Lab

  • Deploy a simple web app on EC2
  • Configure Security Groups
  • Add ALB in front of EC2
  • Test scaling behavior

Outcome
✔ Choose correct compute for application workloads
✔ Deploy scalable compute layer

Module 3: Storage for Developers

Concepts

  • Amazon S3 (buckets, objects, lifecycle)
  • S3 security & encryption
  • EBS vs EFS vs S3 (developer view)

Hands-On Lab

  • Upload & retrieve objects from S3 using SDK
  • Enable versioning & lifecycle rules
  • Secure S3 with bucket policy
  • Use S3 for pre-signed url uploads
  • Track multi-part uploads

Outcome
✔ Integrate object storage in applications

Module 4: Introduction to IAM

  • IAM:
    • Users, Roles, Policies
    • IAM best practices for developers

Hands-On Lab

  • Create IAM role for application access
  • Use IAM policy simulator

Module 5: Introduction to Serverless Development

Concepts

  • AWS Lambda deep dive
  • Event-driven architecture
  • Lambda execution model & limits
  • API Gateway basics

Hands-On Lab

  • Build a Lambda function
  • Expose via API Gateway
  • Test using Postman
  • Enable logging with CloudWatch

Outcome
✔ Build & expose serverless APIs

Day 1 Capstone Lab

Build a simple REST API using:

  • Lambda
  • API Gateway
  • S3 for data storage

DAY 2 – Data, Messaging & Application Integration

Module 5: Databases on AWS (2 hrs)

Concepts

RDS vs DynamoDB vs Aurora

Choosing the right database

Connection management best practices

Secrets Manager

Hands-On Lab

Create RDS (MySQL/Postgres)

Connect application to RDS

Store DB credentials in Secrets Manager

Outcome
✔ Secure database connectivity
✔ Avoid hard-coded secrets

Module 6: NoSQL & High-Scale Applications (1.5 hrs)

Concepts

DynamoDB architecture

Partition keys & indexes

Read/write capacity modes

DynamoDB Streams

Hands-On Lab

Create DynamoDB table

CRUD operations using SDK

Enable Streams

Outcome
✔ Build highly scalable data layer

Module 7: Messaging & Event-Driven Design (2 hrs)

Concepts

SQS vs SNS vs EventBridge

Decoupled architectures

Retry & DLQ patterns

Hands-On Lab

Create SQS queue

Publish messages from Lambda

Process messages asynchronously

Configure DLQ

Outcome
✔ Build resilient, decoupled systems

Module 8: Caching & Performance Optimization (1 hr)

Concepts

Amazon ElastiCache

Caching strategies

Performance tuning basics

Hands-On Lab

Integrate Redis cache

Reduce DB calls using cache

Outcome
✔ Improve application performance

Day 2 Capstone Lab

Event-driven application using:

API Gateway

Lambda

DynamoDB

SQS

DAY 3 – VPC, CI/CD, Observability, Security & Best Practices

Aligns with: AWS Developing on AWS – Day 3

Module 9: CI/CD for AWS Applications (2 hrs)

Concepts

VPC

CI/CD on AWS

CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodePipeline

Infrastructure as Code (Terraform intro)

Hands-On Lab

Create CI/CD pipeline

Build & deploy Lambda automatically

Version application releases

Outcome
✔ Automated build & deployment

Module 10: Monitoring, Logging & Troubleshooting (1.5 hrs)

Concepts

Amazon CloudWatch metrics & logs

Alarms & dashboards

X-Ray tracing

Hands-On Lab

Enable CloudWatch logs

Create alarms

Trace requests using X-Ray

Outcome
✔ Production-ready observability

Module 11: Security Best Practices for Developers (1.5 hrs)

Concepts

Least privilege IAM

Encryption at rest & in transit

WAF basics

Secure API design

Hands-On Lab

Encrypt data using KMS

Secure API Gateway with authorizer

Review IAM permissions

Outcome
✔ Build secure cloud-native apps

Module 12: AWS Well-Architected Framework (1 hr)

Concepts

6 Pillars overview

Developer responsibility per pillar

Common anti-patterns

Hands-On Exercise

Review sample architecture

Identify risks & improvements

Final Capstone Project (2 hrs)

End-to-End Application

API Gateway

Lambda

DynamoDB

SQS

CI/CD pipeline

Monitoring & security

Next

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