AWS Big Picture — Transcript-Only Hierarchical Notes
All points are reorganized and clarified strictly from the video transcript; no extra AWS services added beyond what the
speaker covered.
Contents
1 1. Sample App & Objective
2 2. Compute Foundations (EC2, ELB, ASG) & Global Infra (Regions/AZs)
3 3. Managed Compute
4 3.1 Elastic Beanstalk
5 3.2 Containers → Docker, ECS, EKS, Fargate
6 3.3 Serverless Functions → AWS Lambda
7 4. Data Layer
8 4.1 Transactional vs Analytical workloads
9 4.2 Relational (RDS) & Amazon Aurora
10 4.3 NoSQL (DynamoDB)
11 4.4 Analytics (Redshift/Hadoop), Data Pipeline, Business Intelligence (QuickSight)
12 5. Front-End & Content Delivery (S3 static hosting, Route 53, CloudFront)
13 6. Storage (EBS/EFS/S3) and typical uses
14 7. Networking & Security (VPC, Subnets, Traffic control, VPN & Direct Connect)
15 8. Messaging & Integration (SQS, SNS)
16 9. DevOps on AWS
17 9.1 CI/CD (CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy)
18 9.2 Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation, Terraform, CDK)
19 9.3 Configuration Management (Ansible, Chef, Puppet, AWS OpsWorks)
20 9.4 Observability (CloudWatch metrics & logs, X-Ray tracing)
21 10. Reference Architecture Recap (End■to■End Flow)
22 Appendix: Diagrams from the video
1. Sample App & Objective
Front■end SPA → REST API → Database, with a separate reporting pipeline. Purpose: map the app to AWS
services.
2. Compute Foundations (EC2, ELB, ASG) & Global Infra (Regions/AZs)
EC2 runs your runtime (Python/Java/Node). One VM is a SPOF, so run many and place a Load Balancer in front.
Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) spreads requests across instances.
Auto Scaling Group (ASG) grows/shrinks instance count based on demand and health.
Regions & Availability Zones: deploy across AZs for HA. Multi■Region helps with geographic resiliency/latency.
3. Managed Compute
3.1 Elastic Beanstalk
Give AWS your artifact or a Docker image; Beanstalk provisions ELB/ASG/EC2 and manages health checks,
scaling, and updates.
3.2 Containers → Docker, ECS, EKS, Fargate
Docker images package OS + runtime + config + code for consistent deployments.
ECS = AWS native orchestrator; EKS = managed Kubernetes. For either, you typically create a cluster and run
multiple microservices.
Fargate = serverless compute for containers—no node management.
3.3 Serverless Functions → AWS Lambda
Upload code, pick a runtime, and AWS scales it on demand. Pay per request/duration. Great for serverless REST
or event■driven tasks.
4. Data Layer
4.1 Transactional vs Analytical workloads
Transactional (OLTP): many small reads/writes; uptime & durability are key.
Analytical (OLAP): periodic bulk loads from OLTP; heavy read queries to derive insights.
4.2 Relational (RDS) & Amazon Aurora
RDS: managed MySQL/PostgreSQL/Oracle/SQL Server. Aurora: high availability and performance with
MySQL/PostgreSQL compatibility.
4.3 NoSQL (DynamoDB)
DynamoDB: key■value/document store for massive scale with flexible schema.
4.4 Analytics (Redshift/Hadoop), Data Pipeline, Business Intelligence (QuickSight)
Redshift is used for large■scale analytics; Hadoop can be run in AWS too.
AWS Data Pipeline can move/transform data from transactional stores into the analytical store.
QuickSight provides BI dashboards over the analytical data.
5. Front■End & Content Delivery (S3 static hosting, Route 53, CloudFront)
S3 can host static websites. Route 53 maps your domain (e.g., www.example.com). CloudFront distributes and
caches static content globally for lower latency.
6. Storage (EBS/EFS/S3) and typical uses
EBS: a block volume like a disk, attached to one EC2 instance.
EFS: a shared, network file system that many instances can mount at the same time.
S3: object storage accessed by key via REST; ideal for uploads, archives, migration staging, and static site files.
7. Networking & Security
VPC is your private network boundary in AWS.
Use public subnets for internet■facing components (e.g., web), private subnets for internal resources (e.g.,
databases).
Define rules to control allowed/blocked traffic flows.
Hybrid connectivity options: Managed VPN (IPsec over internet) and Direct Connect (dedicated link).
8. Messaging & Integration (SQS, SNS)
SQS provides queues for asynchronous decoupling; SNS provides pub/sub notifications and fan■out.
9. DevOps on AWS
9.1 CI/CD (CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy)
CodeBuild builds artifacts (Docker image/JAR). CodeDeploy deploys to EC2/ECS/Lambda/Beanstalk.
CodePipeline orchestrates the flow.
9.2 Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation, Terraform, CDK)
Automate provisioning of VPCs, subnets, databases, and app stacks to avoid manual drift across
DEV/QA/STG/PROD.
9.3 Configuration Management (Ansible, Chef, Puppet, AWS OpsWorks)
Apply patches, install packages, and configure fleets consistently; OpsWorks provides AWS integration for these
tools.
9.4 Observability (CloudWatch metrics & logs, X■Ray tracing)
CloudWatch collects metrics and logs from your apps and AWS services; X■Ray traces requests across
microservices for end■to■end visibility.
10. Reference Architecture Recap (End■to■End Flow)
1 Static front■end is stored in S3 → cached via CloudFront → reachable via Route 53 domain.
2 Users call the REST API via a Load Balancer to a compute tier (EC2+ASG, Beanstalk, ECS/EKS, or Lambda).
3 Transactional data is stored in a managed database (RDS/Aurora) or DynamoDB.
4 A data pipeline periodically moves data into an analytical store (e.g., Redshift). QuickSight provides BI
dashboards.
5 Messaging with SQS/SNS decouples components. Everything is isolated inside a VPC with public/private
subnets.
6 Hybrid connectivity uses Managed VPN (IPsec) or Direct Connect. CI/CD uses
CodePipeline/CodeBuild/CodeDeploy. Observability via CloudWatch & X■Ray.
Appendix: Diagrams from the Video
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