Join the AWS 12 Weeks Learning Challenge (nickednamed AWS Expedition) and boost your knowledge of Amazon Web Services (AWS)! This challenge is designed to help you gain real-world experience, master various AWS services and technologies through curated content while documenting your journey on LinkedIn or a personal blog.
Some labs are divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced.

Prerequisites

  • Drive/desire to read documentation
  • Access to an AWS account
  • Basic understanding of cloud computing concepts
  • Familiarity with web development
  • A LinkedIn account
  • A blog account for documenting your journey

Learning Mode

Our AWS 12-Week Expedition offers two learning modes to accommodate different preferences and learning styles:

- Self-Paced Mode

In the Self-Paced Mode, you have the flexibility to learn and carry out labs at your own pace. You can access the curated content, resources, and challenges provided and progress through the curriculum at your preferred speed. This mode is ideal for those who prefer a self-directed learning experience.

- Group Mode

In the Group Mode, learners have the opportunity to collaborate, engage, and learn together. You will be added to a dedicated group, where your progress will be tracked throughout the 12-week journey. Group Mode includes:

  • Weekly group sessions for discussions, Q&A, and knowledge sharing.
  • Custom labs designed to enhance practical understanding.
  • Enforcement of journey documentation to ensure a structured learning experience.
  • Assignment of accountability partners to provide support and motivation.

Remember, the learning curriculum is open to everyone regardless of their preferred learning mode. You can choose the mode that best suits your needs and preferences, ensuring a fulfilling learning experience.

Challenge curriculum

  • Week 01 Overview of AWS core services

    In this weeks challenge, through a mix of service explanation and hands-on labs led by AWS, you will learn about AWS foundational services as well as key concepts for AWS security measures and architecture best practices. The hands-on labs are largely divided into basic and advanced modules. In basic modules, you can learn various features of each AWS foundational service. In advanced modules, you can learn how to connect each service organically to create architecture like 3-tier web application.

  • Service: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

    Description: AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a powerful service that enables you to securely control access to your AWS resources. IAM allows you to manage users, groups, and roles, assign permissions, and set up authentication and authorization mechanisms for your AWS accounts and resources. It provides a central point of control for managing identities and their access to AWS services and APIs.

    In this week's challenge, you will explore the realm of identity and access management with AWS IAM. You will learn how to create and manage IAM users and groups, set up fine-grained permissions using IAM policies, implement multi-factor authentication (MFA), and integrate IAM with other AWS services. Gain hands-on experience in securing your AWS resources and implementing least privilege principles to enforce strong security controls.

    Are you ready to take control of access to your AWS resources and strengthen the security of your applications? Let's kick off Week 2 of the AWS challenge and delve into the world of identity and access management with AWS IAM!

  • Service: Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

    Description: Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a fundamental service for networking in the AWS cloud. It allows you to create your own isolated virtual network within AWS, complete with subnets, route tables, security groups, and network gateways. With VPC, you have full control over your network configuration and can securely connect your resources, both within the VPC and with the outside world.

    In this week's challenge, you will dive into the world of networking with Amazon VPC. You will learn how to create and configure VPCs, design subnets, set up internet and NAT gateways, establish peering connections, and implement network access control using security groups and network ACLs. Gain hands-on experience in building secure and scalable network architectures using VPC's powerful networking capabilities.

    Are you ready to master networking in the AWS cloud with Amazon VPC? Let's kick off Week 3 of the AWS challenge and explore the endless possibilities of networking within your virtual private cloud!

  • Service: Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

    Description: Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is a highly scalable and durable object storage service offered by AWS. S3 provides secure, cost-effective storage for a wide range of data types, including images, videos, documents, and backups. With its robust features, S3 allows you to store and retrieve data from anywhere on the web, while ensuring high availability and durability.

    In this week's challenge, you will dive into the world of storage with Amazon S3. You will learn how to create S3 buckets, upload and download objects, set access permissions, implement versioning and lifecycle policies, and leverage S3 features like event notifications and cross-region replication. Through hands-on exercises, you will gain practical experience in managing and securing data using Amazon S3.

    Are you ready to explore the limitless storage possibilities with Amazon S3? Let's begin Week 4 of the AWS challenge and discover the power of scalable and reliable object storage in the cloud!

  • Services: Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), DynamoDB

    Description: Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is a fully managed database service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. RDS supports popular database engines such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and Amazon Aurora, providing you with a reliable, secure, and scalable solution for your database needs. With RDS, you can offload the administrative tasks of managing databases, allowing you to focus on building applications.

    During this week's challenge, you will dive into the world of database management with Amazon RDS. You will learn how to create and configure database instances, manage backups and snapshots, implement high availability and read replicas, and leverage security features such as encryption and access control. Gain hands-on experience in deploying and managing a relational database in the AWS cloud using RDS.

    Are you ready to take your database management skills to the next level with Amazon RDS? Let's kick off Week 5 of the AWS challenge and explore the power of fully managed databases in the cloud!

  • Service: AWS CloudFormation

    Description: AWS CloudFormation is a powerful service that allows you to provision and manage AWS resources using declarative templates. It provides an infrastructure-as-code (IaC) approach, enabling you to define your entire cloud infrastructure in a template format and deploy it consistently and reliably. With CloudFormation, you can automate the provisioning of resources, manage dependencies, and easily update or rollback infrastructure configurations.

    In this week's challenge, you will explore the capabilities of AWS CloudFormation and learn how to create, manage, and deploy cloud infrastructure using templates. You will gain hands-on experience in defining AWS resources, setting up parameters and outputs, using intrinsic functions, and leveraging advanced features like nested stacks and stack sets. By the end of the week, you will have a solid understanding of how to use CloudFormation to efficiently provision and manage your AWS infrastructure.

    Are you ready to take control of your cloud infrastructure with AWS CloudFormation? Let's dive into Week 6 of the AWS challenge and unlock the power of infrastructure-as-code!

  • Service: Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)

    Description: Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a fully managed container orchestration service that simplifies the deployment and management of containerized applications. With ECS, you can easily run and scale containerized workloads using familiar Docker tools, while benefiting from the reliability, security, and scalability provided by AWS. ECS eliminates the need to manage infrastructure and allows you to focus on building and running your applications seamlessly.

    During this week's challenge, you will delve into the world of containers and explore the capabilities of Amazon ECS. You will learn how to create and manage containerized applications, configure task definitions, set up load balancers, and explore the various deployment strategies offered by ECS. Gain hands-on experience with container orchestration and discover the power of AWS for running scalable and resilient container-based workloads. Are you ready to embark on this exciting journey into the world of containers with Amazon ECS? Let's dive in and start the AWS challenge!

  • Service: AWS Lambda

    Description: AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that allows you to run code without provisioning or managing servers. With Lambda, you can execute your code in response to events, such as changes to data in an Amazon S3 bucket, updates to a DynamoDB table, or API requests. Lambda automatically scales your applications based on the incoming workload, ensuring high availability and cost efficiency.

    In this week's challenge, you will dive into the world of serverless computing with AWS Lambda. You will learn how to create and deploy Lambda functions, configure triggers, and integrate with other AWS services. Explore the benefits of serverless architecture, such as reduced operational overhead, auto-scaling, and pay-per-use pricing. By the end of the week, you will have hands-on experience building serverless applications using AWS Lambda.

    Are you ready to unlock the potential of serverless computing with AWS Lambda? Let's kick off Week 8 of the AWS challenge and discover the power of scalable and cost-effective serverless architectures!

  • Concept: Event-Driven Architecture

    Description: Event-Driven Architecture is an architectural pattern that emphasizes the flow and processing of events as the primary means of communication and coordination between different components or services in a system. In an event-driven system, events are generated and consumed by various components, allowing for loose coupling, scalability, and responsiveness. This pattern is particularly suitable for systems that handle a large volume of events, real-time data processing, and complex workflows.

    During this week's challenge, you will explore the fundamentals of Event-Driven Architecture. You will learn about event producers, event consumers, event-driven messaging, and event-driven design principles. Dive into event sourcing, event-driven patterns, and the use of event-driven frameworks and services like Amazon EventBridge. Through hands-on exercises, you will gain practical experience in building event-driven systems and understand how to leverage this architectural approach for building scalable and responsive applications.

    Are you ready to embrace the power of Event-Driven Architecture? Let's dive into Week 9 of the AWS challenge and unlock the potential of event-driven systems!

  • Service: Amazon Athena, AWS Glue, Amazon Kinesis

    Description: Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that enables you to analyze data directly from Amazon S3 using standard SQL queries. It allows you to quickly and easily run ad-hoc queries on large datasets without the need for infrastructure provisioning or data loading. Athena is designed for analyzing structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, providing powerful insights and enabling data-driven decision-making.

    In this week's challenge, you will delve into the world of analytics with Amazon Athena. You will learn how to create tables and define schemas, write SQL queries to extract meaningful insights from your data, and optimize query performance using partitioning and compression techniques. Gain hands-on experience in analyzing vast amounts of data stored in Amazon S3 and uncover valuable business insights using Athena's powerful querying capabilities.

    Are you ready to unlock the potential of data analytics with Amazon Athena? Let's kick off Week 10 of the AWS challenge and discover the power of interactive and serverless data querying!

  • Service: AWS CodeWhisperer

    Description: Amazon CodeWhisperer is a general purpose, machine learning-powered code generator that provides you with code recommendations in real time. As you write code, CodeWhisperer automatically generates suggestions based on your existing code and comments. It can generate code suggestions ranging from snippets to full functions in real time based on your comments and existing code. It can help with creating code for routine or time-consuming, undifferentiated tasks, working with unfamiliar APIs or SDKs, making correct and effective use of AWS APIs, and other common coding scenarios such as reading and writing files, image processing, writing unit tests, and lots more.

    Let's kick off Week 11 of the challenge and increase our coding efficiency by harnessing the power of AI responsibly!

  • Concept: Observability in Cloud Applications

    Description: Observability is a critical aspect of building and maintaining reliable and scalable cloud applications. It refers to the ability to gain insights into the internal state and behavior of a system by monitoring, collecting, and analyzing relevant data. Observability helps identify and resolve issues, understand performance bottlenecks, and optimize the overall health and efficiency of your applications.

    During this week's challenge, you will dive into the world of observability in cloud applications. You will learn about various observability tools and techniques, including logging, monitoring, and tracing. Explore services like AWS CloudWatch, AWS X-Ray, and third-party tools that provide insights into system behavior, resource utilization, and application performance. Through hands-on exercises, you will gain practical experience in setting up monitoring and logging solutions, analyzing metrics and logs, and diagnosing issues in your cloud applications.

    Are you ready to enhance the observability of your cloud applications and gain valuable insights into their performance and behavior? Let's kick off Week 12 of the challenge and unlock the power of observability in the cloud!

Register

Please note that having some experience in a programming language is an added advantage. If you are totally new to the cloud (and/or programming), please apply for the AWS Launchpad challenge (coming soon)

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to embark on an exhilarating 12-Week Expedition, documenting your journey, knowledge and striving to complete the curriculum within the allotted time.
Do you accept?