Dipali Kulshrestha

Posted on Jan 10 • Edited on Jan 20

AWS Development Environment

#aws #security #architecture

Module Objectives

By the end of this module, participants will be able to:

Introduction
Set up a secure AWS development environment
Configure CLI & SDK access securely

Introduction: AWS Global Infrastructure

Key Concepts

AWS Regions

A Region is a geographical area with multiple, isolated Availability Zones

Examples: us-east-1, eu-west-1, ap-south-1

Developers choose Regions based on:

Latency
Compliance & data residency
Service availability

Availability Zones (AZs)

An AZ is one or more physically separate data centres within a Region

AZs are:

Connected via high-speed, low-latency links
Isolated to prevent failure propagation

Best practice:

Deploy applications across multiple AZs for high availability

Edge Locations

Used by services such as:

Amazon CloudFront
AWS WAF
AWS Shield

Purpose:

Reduce latency by serving content closer to users
Improve performance for global applications

Regional vs Global Services (Developer View)

Global services:

IAM
Route 53
CloudFront

Regional services:

EC2, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB

1. AWS Development Environment – Overview

A controlled AWS setup that allows developers to:

Write, build, test, and deploy applications
Access AWS services securely
Use automation tools (CLI, SDK, IaC)

Typical Components

AWS Account (or sandbox)
IAM Users / Roles
AWS Management Console
AWS CLI
SDKs (Java, Python, Node.js, etc.)
CloudShell / Cloud9 (optional)
Source control (GitHub / CodeCommit)

2. AWS Account & Environment Setup

Why not to use root account for development. Root account has unrestricted access – IAM policies do NOT apply to root.

Common models:

Single Account (training / sandbox)
Multi-Account (prod, non-prod, dev) – mention AWS Organizations
Root Account – Best Practices
Enable MFA
Do not use root for daily tasks
Secure root credentials

7. Development Access Options

AWS Management Console

Browser-based
For learning, debugging, configuration

AWS CLI

Used for automation and scripting
Uses IAM credentials or roles

AWS SDKs

Used in application code
Automatically picks credentials from environment

Credential resolution order (important concept):

Environment variables
Shared credentials file
IAM role (EC2/Lambda)
Default profile

8. AWS CloudShell

Browser-based shell
Pre-configured AWS CLI
Uses IAM permissions automatically

Benefits

No local setup
Secure
Ideal for training labs

Lab: Configure AWS CLI Securely

Objective

Set up AWS CLI using IAM user credentials.

Steps

Install AWS CLI
Run:aws configure

Provide:
Access Key
Secret Key
Region

Verify:

aws sts get-caller-identity

Security Note

Explain .aws/credentials file and risks.

Hands on Lab Prerequisites:

pip3 install boto3
aws configure

Lab: Create script to list bucket(vi or any editor)

import boto3

def list_buckets():
    s3 = boto3.client('s3')
    response = s3.list_buckets()

    print("S3 Buckets:")
    for bucket in response['Buckets']:
        print(f"- {bucket['Name']}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    list_buckets()

Next

Compute options for Developers

Dipali Kulshrestha ・ Jan 10

#architecture #aws #devops

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