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AWS basics flashcards

The core cloud services for running, storing and serving your apps.

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Beginner friendly, starts from zero
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AWS basicsStart from zero · 1 of 12

What is AWS, in one plain sentence?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) rents out computers, storage space and other building blocks over the internet, and you pay only for what you use.

Like hiring a car by the hour instead of buying one.
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All topics

What you will learn

  1. Start from zero

    • What AWS is and why it exists4 cards
    • Where things live: Regions and accounts2 cards
    • Key words: access and storage2 cards
    • Ways to talk to AWS2 cards
    • Before and after this topic2 cards

  2. Core basics

    • Cloud value and global infrastructure4 cards
    • Account security and IAM4 cards
    • First services: EC2 and S35 cards
    • CLI and tooling3 cards
    • Billing, Free Tier and cost control4 cards

  3. Next steps

    • Networking with VPC5 cards
    • Managed databases3 cards
    • Serverless with Lambda and API Gateway2 cards
    • Traffic: load balancing, CDN and DNS3 cards
    • Application security3 cards
    • Monitoring and logs2 cards
    • Messaging and events3 cards

  4. Go deeper

    • Infrastructure as code2 cards
    • Scaling and compute choices3 cards
    • Cost optimization4 cards
    • Data protection and encryption2 cards
    • Multi-account governance3 cards
    • Security, audit and detection5 cards
    • Resilience and disaster recovery2 cards

Final test and certificate

10 questions drawn fresh from the whole topic, about 15 minutes. Sign in, score 80% or more and get a free certificate with your name and a public check link anyone can open, such as an employer or a teacher. Not signed in? Try a practice test from the cards.

Take the final test

About these cards

  • Reviewed 26 October 2026
  • CoversAWS CLI v2AWS CDK v2Free Tier plans for accounts created from 15 July 2025Cloud Practitioner exam CLF-C02
How these cards are made

AWS basics at a glance

AWS rents you computers, storage and other building blocks over the internet, paid by use.

Like the electricity grid: you plug in and pay the meter instead of running your own generator.

Words you will meet

Server
A computer that stays on and answers requests from other computers
Region
A city area where AWS has its data centres, such as Mumbai
Root user
The owner sign-in made from your email, with power over everything
IAM
The part of AWS that decides who may do what in your account
Policy
A written rule that lists what an identity is allowed to do
Bucket
A named container in S3 that holds your files
CLI
A program you type commands to, instead of clicking buttons

The steps

  1. 1. Start from zero (12 cards): What the cloud is, why it exists and the few words you need before Core basics.
  2. 2. Core basics (20 cards): Regions, accounts, IAM, EC2, S3, the CLI and keeping the bill under control.
  3. 3. Next steps (21 cards): Networking, databases, serverless, DNS, CDN, queues and monitoring.
  4. 4. Go deeper (21 cards): Infrastructure as code, multi-account, scaling, cost, encryption and security.
All 12 cards in Start from zero
What is AWS, in one plain sentence?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) rents out computers, storage space and other building blocks over the internet, and you pay only for what you use.
Before clouds like AWS, how did a company get computers for its website?
It bought its own machines, waited weeks for them to arrive, paid up front, and had to guess how many it would need. Guess low and the site crashed; guess high and money sat idle.
Where have you already used AWS without knowing it?
Many shopping, streaming, banking and booking apps run on rented cloud computers. When you upload a photo to an app, it often lands in cloud storage like this.
People say 'the cloud'. What is it really, and what is a server?
A server is a computer that stays on and answers requests from other computers, like a shop counter that never closes. The cloud is thousands of servers in big buildings called data centres, rented over the internet.
What are a Region and an Availability Zone, in plain words?
A Region is a city area where AWS has data centres, such as Mumbai. An Availability Zone is one separate group of buildings inside that Region, with its own power, so one problem cannot stop everything.
What is an AWS account, and who is the root user?
An account is your own space at AWS: everything you rent lives there and shows up on one bill. The email you sign up with becomes the root user, the owner who holds the master key.
What do IAM, a role and a policy mean?
IAM is the guest list of your account: it decides who (a person or a program) may come in. A role is a set of rights a program or person can wear, and a policy is the written rule listing what is allowed.
How does AWS store files? What are a bucket, an object and a key?
S3 is AWS's file store. A bucket is a named container you create, an object is one file inside it, and the key is the file's full name, such as products/tea.jpg.
What are the console, the terminal, the CLI and an API?
The console is the AWS website with buttons. The terminal is a window where you type commands, and the AWS CLI is the program you type them to. Both reach AWS through its API, the doorway programs use to ask for things.
Your first tiny win: what does this command do?
aws starts the AWS CLI, s3 picks the storage service, and ls means list. Together they show the buckets in your account.
What do you need before you start?
A computer with a web browser and an email address. To sign up you also need a payment card, but new accounts get free credits, and installing the CLI is optional at first.
After this topic, what will you be able to do?
Choose a Region, sign in safely without the root user, rent a server, store files in S3, read a permission rule, and stop a surprise bill before it happens.
AWS basics cheatsheet

CLI essentials

  • aws configure sso Set up an SSO profile
  • aws sso login --profile p Refresh short-lived credentials
  • aws sts get-caller-identity Which account and role am I
  • export AWS_PROFILE=p AWS_REGION=ap-south-1 Default profile and Region
  • --query 'Items[].Name' --output text Filter output with JMESPath
  • --dry-run Check EC2 permissions without acting
  • aws <service> <cmd> help Built-in docs

S3

  • aws s3 cp f s3://b/k Upload a file
  • aws s3 sync ./dist s3://b --delete Mirror a folder
  • aws s3 ls s3://b/prefix/ --recursive --summarize List with total size
  • aws s3 presign s3://b/k --expires-in 300 Temporary download link
  • aws s3api put-bucket-versioning ... Status=Enabled Turn on versioning
  • aws s3api put-bucket-lifecycle-configuration Auto move or expire
  • aws s3api get-public-access-block --bucket b Check public access

Compute

  • aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=tag:env,Values=prod Find instances by tag
  • aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-... Stop compute billing
  • aws ssm start-session --target i-... Shell without SSH or open ports
  • aws lambda invoke --function-name f out.json Run a function
  • aws logs tail /aws/lambda/f --follow Stream logs live
  • aws ecs update-service --force-new-deployment Redeploy containers
  • aws ecr get-login-password | docker login ... Log in to the registry

Data and network

  • aws rds describe-db-instances Database status and endpoints
  • aws rds create-db-snapshot Manual backup
  • aws dynamodb query --key-condition-expression ... Read by key, not Scan
  • aws sqs receive-message --wait-time-seconds 20 Long polling
  • aws ec2 describe-security-groups --group-ids sg-... Inspect firewall rules
  • aws ec2 create-vpc-endpoint --vpc-endpoint-type Gateway Free S3/DynamoDB route
  • aws cloudfront create-invalidation --paths '/*' Clear CDN cache

Security and cost

  • aws iam simulate-principal-policy Test what a role may do
  • aws accessanalyzer list-findings Public or cross-account access
  • aws cloudtrail lookup-events Who did what, last 90 days
  • aws secretsmanager get-secret-value --secret-id s Read a secret
  • aws kms encrypt / decrypt Small data with a KMS key
  • aws ce get-cost-and-usage --group-by ... Where the money goes
  • aws budgets create-budget Spend alerts
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