About me:
I'm an IT professional with 10+ years of experience. For about 8 years I worked as the front line of internal End User Support in training, troubleshooting software, hardware, and network issues on Mac, PC, and iOS platforms for scientists, doctors, and support staff.
In 2022 I had the opportunity to move over to a Lab Technology team. In this new role, myself and my team are responsible for the secure and functional integration of complex third-party lab instrumentations projects, devices and technologies with our software systems, such as digital cages, sensors, devices, to name just a few.
This new position allowed me to work in many complex system integrations, requiring me to be working directly with Cloud Engineers, Network Engineers, Database experts, etc. This experience made me realize the importance of sharpening my skills to stay relevant in the ever-evolving IT landscape. It also reignited my passion for cloud computing—a field I had explored years ago but had set aside.
So this is my 2025 goal: Complete the Cloud Resume Challenge by Q2 of 2025, and get the AWS Solutions Architect Associate by no later than Q3.
The Cloud Resume Challenge:
PS: This post is a raw collection of my thoughts as I progress through the challenge. Initially, I planned to write everything in a Word document, format it later, and then publish a polished blog. However, I decided it would be more beneficial to share my journey in real-time, updating the blog a few times a week. This approach will keep me accountable and motivated to complete each step of the challenge.
Once I finish the Cloud Resume Challenge, I plan to publish a refined blog, but I’ll keep this "raw" version as a record of my progress—something to look back on and appreciate how far I've come... :-)
Day 1 (01/22/25)
For Day 1 I mostly focused on getting my AWS account ready for the challenge. I’ve used the same account through all the AWS courses I’ve done, so there were some cleaning to be done.
The first challenge was to get the IAM Identity Center (Former AWS SSO) setup. As recommended by the Cloud Resume Book, I tried to follow this tutorial, however it was outdated. Even though the screenshots from the tutorial were outdated, the setup was very straight forward. I did watch this quick youtube video to help me navigate the IAM Identity Center console.
Once I got the IAM Identity Center configured, by creating a group, an user and setting permissions, it was time to get CLI setup.
To get the CLI setup I used those two AWS Whitepapers:
CLI Install: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/getting-started-install.html
CLI Configuration: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-configure-sso.html
I spent about 4 hours on day 1.
Day 2 (01/23/25)
Finding a template for the resume in HTML and CSS was very straight forward. Tweaking it seems easy.
I’m very confused about setting up CloudFront, setting up DNS and using HTPPS for the static website. The main confusion is coming from not knowing where to start. Do I need to request a DNS name first? Do I need to configure CloudFront Distribution? To request HTTPS I need to get setup certificates first? How?
After some reading, this is how I approached it:
Create resume in HTML and CSS > Create S3 bucket and configure it to host static website > Move static website content to S3 bucket > Use Route53 to request a domain > Configure domain (create a record, add CNAME and point it to your bucket) > Add TLS cert using CloudFront Distribution.
This video helped me greatly with this challenge.
I probably spent about 4-5 hours on day 2.
Day 3 (01/24/25)
Most of my day 3 I’ve spent trying to figure out why I can’t list my S3 buckets using the AWS CLI. I’ve read through Amazon whitepaper on how to configure and troubleshoot CLI issues, but I could not find a solution to the errors I’m getting when trying to list my s3 buckets.
Some of the error messages are: “The AWS Access Key Id you provided does not exist in our records”, and “...unable to locate credentials”. I will get back to this another time, as it’s not important right now.
I did get my GitHub repo created. Need to watch more videos about GitHub so I can understand it better.
About 3 hours troubleshooting this on day 3.
Day 4 and 5 (01/27 and 01/28)
I mostly watched videos and read articles about APIs, DynamoDB, Lambda and Python, trying to understand each of those topics a little bit more individually first, and then how I can get them all to work together.
Time spent: About 3 hours
Day 6 (01/29/25)
Still working through understanding how Lambda and DynamoDB works together. Not really very hard to make Lambda interact with DynamoDB. Understanding how/why it works is the, and what the Python code is doing, for example, is the harder part.
I got it to work in the end, by following the tutorial from the video below. But I think I’m still miles to go to fully understand everything I did. However, I’m 100% confident that today I understand Lambda and DynamoDB much more than yesterday.
PS to myself: Go back to learning Python ASAP.
Extremely useful tutorial video on Lambda, DynamoDB and Python: AWS Lambda Python functions with a database (DynamoDB)
Time Spent: About 3 hours.
** Couldn’t do much in the last 2 weeks with the kid and myself getting sick. Still watched some videos on API, DynamoDB, Lambda functions, etc.
Day 7 (02/13/25)
I was able to get the Lambda function to save a value into a DynamoDB table. I got the Python code from ChatGPT, but had to tweak it here and there to make it work. I don’t think that currently I’m capable of writing a Lambda function with Python all by myself, but I definitely have a much better understanding on how Lambda functions interact with DynamoDB.
When it comes to API, and how to get it configured, I’m still having a hard time understanding and implementing it. I still don’t understand what routes, methods, integrations, CORS, etc, work. I’m currently unable to make my API invoke my Lambda function. Need to research more.
PS: Feeling a bit overwhelmed and frustrated today. We'll go again tomorrow.
Time spent: Not sure. At least 3 hours.
Day 8 (02/14/25)
I tried to update/change my index.html, and noticed that the changes were not going through when accessing my resume website (resume.smaylle.com). I even deleted the index.html from the S3 bucket, waited several hours, and the website was still running just fine. I did some research, and several people in the forums was saying it was a Cloudfront caching issue, and I should create an invalidation to fix it, which worked for me. AWS whitepaper is used below:
As I was trying to figure out the caching issues, I noticed that my S3 bucket actually had public access enabled (not good). I know it doesn't need to be public because I'm using Cloudfront. I turned off the public access to the bucket, but as expected, my website is no longer accessible. I think I know what the problem is. When I was creating the Cloudfront distribution, under Origin Access, I picked the Public option, instead of the Origin Access Control settings, so there is no bucket policy created in S3 that allows Cloudfront access only to my bucket. I could go ahead and create a brand new CF distribution, but I'm going to try to attach a policy to the bucket first and see if I can make it work. I've tried a few things like changing the policy directly within the bucket permissions, but I'm getting an error every time I tried to save it. I also played around with the Cloudfront origin access, but no luck yet. I'll try a few more things, but if I can't get it to work, I'll create a new CF distribution. In the end, it will be a learning experience regardless of what path I take.
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