Understand AWS visually

Cloud Virtual Servers

EC2 is a virtual server in AWS where you run an operating system and application directly. It provides the compute slot for long-lived workloads by letting you launch instances and attach disks and networks as needed.

Unlimited Object Storage

S3 is a shared object store that keeps files as objects in buckets rather than on a server disk. Applications upload and download through HTTP APIs, and other AWS services can use the same objects as both inputs and outputs.

Serverless Function Execution

Lambda is a function runtime that executes code only when an event arrives instead of reserving a server ahead of time. It provides an execution layer for request-driven and event-driven compute that starts, runs the needed logic, and ends.

Managed Relational Database

RDS is a managed database layer where AWS operates the relational engine for you. Applications still connect with SQL, but the service takes on repetitive work like backups, patching, and failover.

Virtual Network Isolation

VPC is the foundational network layer that defines the private address space and communication boundaries where AWS resources live. You combine subnets, routing, gateways, and security rules to decide which resources can talk to which destinations.

Access and Permission Management

IAM is the permission layer that defines how people and AWS services can access resources. It combines users, roles, and policies to control what is allowed from the console, CLI, and service-to-service calls.

Monitoring and Observability

CloudWatch is the observability layer that gathers metrics, logs, and alarms from AWS resources and applications into one place. It turns current system state into numbers and events, then connects notifications or automated actions when thresholds are crossed.

Serverless NoSQL Database

DynamoDB is a serverless NoSQL store designed for very fast reads and writes around keys. It automatically scales through its partition and index model and commonly acts as the primary application data store for high-throughput systems.

Container Orchestration

ECS is the orchestration layer that decides how many copies of a container run, where they run, and how they are replaced. It standardizes deployment and service operations around task definitions and services.

API Creation and Management

API Gateway is the API front door where external client requests first arrive. It applies authentication, throttling, and transformation rules per path and method before forwarding traffic to the right backend.

Push Notifications and Messaging

SNS is a pub/sub notification channel that spreads one event to many subscribers at the same time. Producers publish once to a topic, and each consumer, such as email, HTTP, Lambda, or SQS, receives the same event in its own way.

Message Queue Service

SQS is a queue that safely holds task messages until consumers pull and process them. It stabilizes async work by separating producer and consumer speed and by isolating failures through retries.

DNS and Domain Management

Route 53 is the DNS layer that connects domain names to actual service endpoints. Beyond basic name resolution, it uses health checks and routing policies to decide which target a user should reach.

Global CDN

CloudFront is the CDN layer that caches content close to users in edge locations in front of an origin server. It serves repeated responses faster and reduces how many requests must reach the origin, improving both performance and protection.

Load Balancing

ELB is the traffic-distribution layer that places multiple servers or tasks behind one endpoint and spreads incoming requests across them. It helps keep only healthy targets in rotation and gives the service front door high availability.

Block Storage

EBS is the persistent block disk that attaches to an EC2 instance. It keeps data separate from the server lifecycle so it can serve as the operating system disk or the data disk even when the instance is restarted or replaced.

User Authentication and Authorization

Cognito is the user authentication layer for application end users. It handles sign-up, sign-in, and token issuance so the app can identify users, and it can also connect social login or temporary AWS credentials when needed.

Encryption Key Management

KMS is the central layer that creates and protects encryption keys and lets other AWS services use them. Its focus is not the data itself but the lifecycle of the keys: creation, permissions, rotation, and audit history.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

CloudFormation is the IaC engine that turns a declarative template into real AWS resources. A stack uses that template to create, update, and roll back infrastructure in a consistent way.

API Activity Audit Logging

CloudTrail is the audit-log layer that records AWS API calls and account activity in time order. It preserves enough history to reconstruct who performed which action through which path.

Simple Application Deployment

Elastic Beanstalk is a platform layer that takes application code and assembles the AWS runtime environment around it. It lets a team focus more on application versions and settings than on wiring the underlying infrastructure.

Shared File Storage

EFS is the shared filesystem that multiple servers and containers can mount at the same time. It makes each runtime see the same file paths instead of keeping separate local disks in sync.

In-Memory Caching

ElastiCache is the managed cache layer that keeps frequently read data in memory and returns it quickly. It reduces both latency and load by absorbing repetitive lookups in front of the primary data store.

Serverless Workflow Orchestration

Step Functions is the workflow engine that executes multiple task steps together with ordering, branching, and retry rules. Its focus is not the logic inside one task but the state transitions of the whole procedure.

Fully Managed Machine Learning Platform

SageMaker is the platform layer that covers the ML lifecycle from data preparation and training to model storage and inference deployment. It gives teams one place to repeat experiments and productionize models.

Foundation Model API Service

Bedrock is the AI layer that lets an application call ready-made foundation models through a common API. It brings generative inference into product features without requiring you to build model-training infrastructure yourself.

AI-Powered Image/Video Analysis

Rekognition is the analysis API that extracts visual information such as objects, faces, and text from images and video. It delivers common computer-vision capabilities as a callable service without requiring model training.

Interactive SQL Queries on S3 Data

Athena is a serverless query engine that lets you ask SQL questions directly against files in S3. It provides an exploratory analysis layer without first loading that data into another store.

Real-Time Streaming Data Processing

Kinesis is a streaming data pipe that accepts continuously arriving events and lets multiple consumers read them in near real time. It is built around ongoing event flow rather than isolated work items.

Cloud Data Warehouse

Redshift is a data warehouse that stores prepared analytical data for repeated aggregation and dashboards. It gives you a compute layer dedicated to analytics rather than operational transactions.

Serverless Data Integration (ETL) Service

Glue is the data preparation layer that discovers source data, organizes schema, and transforms it for downstream analytics stores. It combines cataloging and ETL so a data lake remains queryable instead of degrading into raw files.

Serverless Container Execution

Fargate is a serverless execution environment for containers where you do not manage the underlying server nodes. The team declares task resources, and AWS takes responsibility for preparing and running the host capacity.

Fully Managed Container Image Registry

ECR is a registry that stores container images by version and makes them available for deployment targets to pull. It is the storage layer for executable image artifacts produced by your build flow.

Fully Managed CI/CD Pipeline

CodePipeline is the delivery pipeline that connects source changes to build, test, and deployment stages in order. It acts as the orchestration layer that turns separate tools into a repeatable release flow.

Web Application Firewall

WAF is the defensive layer that inspects incoming HTTP requests to public web endpoints and filters malicious patterns first. It blocks common web attacks before they reach application code.

Serverless Event Bus

EventBridge is an event hub that receives application events on a central bus and routes them to other targets through rules. It creates event-driven flows without requiring producers and consumers to call each other directly.