AWS Fundamentals

AWS EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

A web service that provides resizable, virtual server compute capacity in the cloud.

AMI (Amazon Machine Image)

The software template (OS and pre-installed software) used to launch an EC2 instance.

EC2 Instance Type

Determines the hardware configuration (CPU and RAM) assigned to a virtual server, such as Memory Optimized or Compute Optimized.

Ephemeral Storage

Temporary storage physically attached to an EC2 instance; data is completely lost if the instance stops or fails.

AWS EBS (Elastic Block Store)

Highly reliable, external block storage volumes that act like hard drives attached to single EC2 instances.

AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service)

An object storage service acting like an infinite parking lot for files, providing direct web URLs for access.

AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management)

A service that manages access to AWS resources using strict permissions and roles.

IAM Role

A digital "ID Badge" given to AWS services (like an EC2 instance) to grant specific permissions to other services.

Principle of Least Privilege

The security practice of granting a service or user only the exact permissions needed to do their job, minimizing the blast radius.

AWS VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)

A logically isolated, private section of the AWS network where you launch your cloud resources.

Subnet

A segmented, fenced-in area inside a VPC used to organize and isolate resources.

Public Subnet

A subnet with a direct route to the outside internet, typically used for web servers.

Private Subnet

A subnet with no direct access from the outside internet, typically used for secure resources like databases.

AWS ELB (Elastic Load Balancing)

A service that automatically distributes incoming internet traffic evenly across multiple targets.

Target Group

The official list or roster of specific EC2 instances that a Load Balancer is allowed to send traffic to.

Health Checks

Periodic pings sent by a Load Balancer to ensure servers in a Target Group are functioning correctly before sending them traffic.

Network Mapping

The process of discovering and visualizing all the components in a network and how they connect to one another.