To apply theoretical knowledge from previous chapters into practical, hands-on AWS projects. These step-by-step projects are designed to help you become confident in using AWS services by solving real-world problems and deploying actual applications and infrastructure.

Goal: Host a fully functional static website (HTML/CSS/JS) on S3 with public access.

Steps:

1. Prepare your website files:
2. Create an index.html and error.html page.
3. Login to AWS Console and go to the S3 Dashboard.
4. Create a new bucket:
5. Bucket name must be globally unique.
6. Disable "Block all public access" under Permissions.
7. Upload website files to the bucket.
8. Enable static website hosting:
9. Go to the bucket's Properties tab.
10. Enable Static website hosting and set index/error documents.
11. Set Bucket Policy to make files public:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Sid": "PublicReadGetObject",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": "*",
      "Action": "s3:GetObject",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::your-bucket-name/*"
    }
  ]
}

1. Access your website using the S3 website endpoint.

Goal: Deploy a dynamic web app (e.g., PHP + MySQL) using Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS.

Steps:

1. Create an RDS Instance:
2. Choose MySQL.
3. Use Free Tier settings.
4. Set username/password and database name.
5. Make it publicly accessible for testing.
6. Launch an EC2 instance:
7. Choose Amazon Linux 2.
8. Use Free Tier t2.micro.
9. Open ports 22 (SSH), 80 (HTTP).
10. Connect to EC2 via SSH and install web server + MySQL client:

   sudo yum update -y
   sudo yum install -y httpd php php-mysqlnd
   sudo systemctl start httpd
   sudo systemctl enable httpd

1. Deploy Web App Code:
2. Upload using SCP or create manually.
3. Include a DB connection script pointing to your RDS endpoint.
4. Test Connection to RDS and browse app using EC2 public IP.

Goal: Create a simple AWS Lambda function that processes form input (e.g., a contact form) and stores it in DynamoDB.

Steps:

1. Create a DynamoDB Table:
2. Table name: FormSubmissions
3. Primary key: id
4. Create a Lambda Function:
5. Choose Node.js or Python.
6. Attach IAM role with DynamoDB write access.
7. Write Function Code (example in Python):

import json
import boto3
import uuid
def lambda_handler(event, context):
    db = boto3.resource('dynamodb')
    table = db.Table('FormSubmissions')
    data = json.loads(event['body'])
    table.put_item(Item={
        'id': str(uuid.uuid4()),
        'name': data['name'],
        'email': data['email']
    })
    return {
        'statusCode': 200,
        'body': json.dumps('Data saved successfully!')
    }

1. Create API Gateway:
2. Setup POST endpoint to trigger Lambda.
3. Enable CORS.
4. Deploy API and test using Postman or a frontend form.

Goal: Set up a pipeline to automatically deploy code changes from GitHub to EC2 or S3.

Steps:

1. Prepare Code Repository:
2. Push website/app code to a GitHub repository.
3. Create CodePipeline:
4. Source: GitHub (OAuth integration)
5. Build: AWS CodeBuild (optional, or use passthrough)
6. Deploy:
   • S3: for static sites
   • CodeDeploy: for EC2
7. Create CodeDeploy Application and Deployment Group:
8. Attach IAM roles and EC2 tags.
9. Install CodeDeploy agent on EC2 instance.
10. Configure appspec.yml for CodeDeploy:

   version: 0.0
   os: linux
   files:
   - source: /
     destination: /var/www/html
   hooks:
   AfterInstall:
   - location: scripts/restart_server.sh
     timeout: 60
     runas: root

1. Test the Pipeline:
2. Push a new commit to GitHub.
3. Watch it flow through the pipeline and deploy automatically.

These projects demonstrate how to use key AWS services in practical, integrated ways. Starting with static website hosting and progressing through full-stack web deployment, serverless architecture, and automation pipelines, you now have a concrete base to build, secure, and manage real-world applications in the cloud. You’re ready to confidently deploy scalable and maintainable applications on AWS!