Workshop Name: Hands-on Workshop on Cloud-Native Systems & Applied AI Integration **
**Organized by: Department of Computing, Coimbatore Institute of Technology (Five Year Integrated Programme, M.Sc. AI & ML)
Date: 15 & 16 September 2026 (Tuesday & Wednesday)
Speaker: Mr. Santhosh NC, Lead Infrastructure Consultant, Thoughtworks, Coimbatore
We kicked off our AWS workshop with an exciting first session that took us from the very basics of cloud computing all the way to hosting a live portfolio website on AWS. Here's a full recap of everything we covered!
Introduction to AWS and Cloud Service Models
The session began with a solid introduction to AWS (Amazon Web Services) and the three core cloud service models:
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) – renting the raw infrastructure (servers, storage, networking)
PaaS (Platform as a Service) – a ready-made platform to build and deploy apps without managing infrastructure
SaaS (Software as a Service) – fully built software delivered over the internet
Understanding these models gave us a clear picture of where AWS services fit and why cloud computing has become the backbone of modern IT infrastructure.
Fun Task: Find Your AWS Service!
To make the session interactive, everyone was given a fun challenge: find an AWS service that starts with the same letter as your name! It was a great way to explore the massive range of services AWS offers while having a bit of fun with it.
AWS Certifications Overview**
We also got a walkthrough of popular AWS certifications to consider for our cloud journey:
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner – the foundational certification for beginners
AWS Certified AI Practitioner (Generative AI) – focused on AI/ML and generative AI concepts on AWS
AWS Cloud Quest – a gamified, hands-on way to learn AWS skills
Hands-On: Exploring AWS Services
The real highlight of the session was getting hands-on with core AWS services:
1️⃣ Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
Created an S3 bucket from scratch
Uploaded an index.html portfolio website into the bucket
Enabled static website hosting and successfully hosted the portfolio directly from S3
2️⃣ Amazon CloudFront
Repeated the same portfolio hosting exercise, this time using CloudFront as a CDN (Content Delivery Network) in front of our content
Learned how CloudFront helps deliver content faster by caching it closer to users
3️⃣** Introduction to Route 53**
Got introduced to Route 53, AWS's scalable DNS (Domain Name System) web service, and how it's used to route users to applications
🔐** Bonus: Bucket Policies**
Learned what an S3 bucket policy is and how it controls access to bucket contents
Walked through the steps to modify a bucket policy to allow/restrict access as needed
A huge thank you to our speaker, Mr. Santhosh NC, Lead Infrastructure Consultant at Thoughtworks, Coimbatore, for such an engaging and hands-on Session 1! The way the concepts were broken down — from cloud fundamentals to actually deploying a live website on S3 and CloudFront — made everything so much easier to grasp. Thanks also to the Department of Computing, CIT, and the organizing team — Dr. M. Sujithra (Convener), Dr. K. E. Hemapriya & Dr. R. Sudha (Faculty Coordinators), and Dr. K. Umamaheswari (Dean) — for putting together such a well-structured workshop. Looking forward to Day 2! 🎉
*Glimpse from my learning *
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