9.4.1. Goal

Today, we're going to learn how to host a static website on Amazon S3. What do you think a static website consists of?

I think it has HTML, CSS, and maybe some JavaScript!

Exactly! Static websites are built using those technologies. The goal here is to create an index.html and error.html page, and then upload them to an S3 bucket. Can anyone tell me what we need to do when creating the S3 bucket?

We have to make sure the bucket name is unique and allow public access!

Right! And remember the 'Block all public access' setting that we have to disable. This is crucial. After that, we’ll enable static website hosting. What do we do next?

We upload the website files and set the bucket policy to make them public.

Correct! Fantastic! Finally, we can access our website using the S3 website endpoint. In summary, by following these steps, we can successfully host a static website on S3.

Now let’s shift our focus to deploying a dynamic web app on EC2 and using RDS for our database. What’s the first step we need to take?

We need to create an RDS instance!

Correct! And we will choose MySQL and set it to be publicly accessible for testing. What about the EC2 instance?

We will launch it and make sure to open ports 22 for SSH and 80 for HTTP.

Absolutely! Next, we connect to our EC2 instance and install the web server and MySQL client. Can anyone recall what commands we need to use?

We need to run 'sudo yum update -y' and then 'sudo yum install -y httpd php php-mysqlnd'.

Great! Once we've deployed and tested our web app, we can check the connection to the RDS. This brings us another step closer to deploying dynamic applications in the cloud.

Moving on, let’s discuss serverless functions using AWS Lambda. Who can tell me what we will use to store form input in our project?

We'll use DynamoDB to store the submissions!

Exactly! First, we need to create a DynamoDB table called 'FormSubmissions' with 'id' as the primary key. Can anyone explain how we'll create our Lambda function?

We choose Node.js or Python and we'll attach an IAM role for DynamoDB access.

Spot on! Writing the function code is next. After we set everything up and create our API Gateway, what’s the purpose of it?

To trigger our Lambda function using a POST request.

Perfect! This showcases how simple it is to create serverless applications using AWS Lambda.

Lastly, we are discussing CI/CD pipelines for automated deployments. Why is using CI/CD important for our projects?

It helps automate our deployment process, making it faster and less error-prone!

Exactly! We start by preparing our code repository on GitHub. What comes next after pushing our code?

We create a CodePipeline with GitHub as the source.

Great job! We can also configure the build using AWS CodeBuild. Why is it useful to use 'appspec.yml' with CodeDeploy?

It defines how our deployment will occur and what scripts to run after installation.

Excellent! Once we test the pipeline by pushing a new commit, we can observe our code flow through the CI/CD pipeline with ease.