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With the availability of cloud-based resources, developers today have an unprecedented opportunity to create amazing applications that previously weren’t possible. Amazon Web Services (AWS) enables developers to interact with the entire world, even when their application supports the smallest of organizations. The access to services in the cloud is amazing enough, but the access to data and other resources is now at mind-boggling levels. Unfortunately, many developers are indeed overawed by the sheer size and scope of cloud-based development, which is why you need AWS For Developers For Dummies.

This book is about making things simple. You don’t have to try to understand the entire cloud or even just AWS in a single sitting; instead, AWS For Developers For Dummies breaks down all the concepts into smaller chunks. If you want to create imaginative applications, this books helps you do so without spending frustrating hours learning the arcane AWS API beforehand. Life is short. With this book, you can create an application in just a few hours and become productive more quickly, freeing you from the drudgery of learning quite a lot to do only a little.

About This Book

The purpose of AWS For Developers For Dummies is to help you get up and running quickly. You build a test environment and install tools that let you experiment with many of the major services without a lot of effort. The focus of this book is to get you started doing something by using just a few of the services. One of the hardest parts of working with AWS is that so many services are available (more than 100 of them) that a developer might go nuts just trying to figure out where to begin. This book relieves you of that problem.

Most of the book examples focus on three kinds of AWS interaction: through the console, through the Command Line Interface (CLI), and programmatically. In most cases, these are the three ways developers begin working with AWS. The console lets you see how AWS works from an administrative level. Using CLI helps you understand the AWS functionality at a deeper level, plus you can use it to create scripts. Finally, this book uses Python Notebooks to make experimentation very easy. You don’t have to write complete applications to see something happen; just a few lines of code will do. So, in contrast to other programming projects, in which you spent hours writing code just to see the project die because of the smallest typo, this book helps you attain something significant without much typing at all.

To help you absorb the concepts, this book uses the following conventions:

❯❯ Text that you’re meant to type just as it appears in the book is in bold. The exception is when you’re working through a step list: Because each step is bold, the text to type is not bold.

❯❯ Words for you to type that are also in italics are meant as placeholders; you need to replace them with something that works for you. For example, if you see “Type Your Name and press Enter,” you need to replace Your Name with your actual name.

❯❯ I also use italics for terms I define. This means that you don’t have to rely on other sources to provide the definitions you need.

❯❯ Web addresses and programming code appear in monofont. If you’re reading a digital version of this book on a device connected to the Internet, you can click the live link to visit a website, like this: http://www.dummies.com.

❯❯ When you need to click command sequences, you see them separated by a special arrow, like this: File ⇒ New File, which tells you to click File and then New File.

Foolish Assumptions

You might have a hard time believing that I’ve assumed anything about you – after all, I haven’t even met you yet! Although most assumptions are indeed foolish, I made certain assumptions to provide a starting point for the book.

The first assumption is that you’re familiar with the platform you want to use, because the book doesn’t offer any guidance in this regard. This book doesn’t discuss any platform-specific issues. You really do need to know how to install applications, use applications, and generally work with your chosen platform before you begin working with this book.

You also need to be familiar with your browser and understand how to interact with browser-based applications. Sprinkled throughout are numerous references to online material that can enhance your learning experience. In addition, most of the tasks you perform with AWS require that you work in your browser.

This book is largely platform independent. However, none of the procedures are tested using small mobile devices, such as a smartphone (and some are almost guaranteed not to work on a small device). Differences in appearance do emerge when using a smaller device; a control that appears as a button on a larger device may appear as a link or other control on a smaller device. You need access to the sort of setup that a developer will use to create and configure online applications, which means a larger tablet, notebook, or, better yet, a full desktop system. The various people who worked on this book used desktop systems running the Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X platforms and using a number of common browsers.

Because this is a book about application development, you also need to have some understanding of the development process. Knowledge of Python would be nice, but it’s not absolutely necessary because of the way the examples work. You may still need to spend some time with a Python tutorial to understand everything that the examples provide. In addition, you need to know how to work at the command prompt or terminal window. Many of the examples require that you manually type commands rather than work with a GUI. In fact, a few of the examples simply won’t work with a GUI because the options are unavailable. (These examples are clearly marked in the book.)

Icons Used in This Book

As you read this book, you encounter icons in the margins that indicate material of special interest (or not, as the case may be!). Here’s what the icons mean:

Tips are nice because they help you save time or perform some task without a lot of extra work. The tips in this book are time-saving techniques or pointers to resources that you should try so that you can get the maximum benefit when performing AWS-related tasks.

I don’t want to sound like an angry parent or some kind of maniac, but you should avoid doing anything that’s marked with a Warning icon. Otherwise, you might find that your configuration fails to work as expected, you get incorrect results from seemingly bulletproof processes, or (in the worst-case scenario) you lose data.

Whenever you see this icon, think advanced tip or technique. You might find these tidbits of useful information just too boring for words, or they could contain the solution you need to get an AWS service running. Skip these bits of information whenever you like.

If you don’t get anything else out of a particular chapter or section, remember the material marked by this icon. This text usually contains an essential process or a bit of information that you must know to work with AWS, or to perform cloud-based-setup tasks successfully.

Beyond the Book

This book isn’t the end of your AWS learning experience – it’s really just the beginning. I provide online content to make this book more flexible and better able to meet your needs. That way, as I receive email from you, I can address questions and tell you how updates to AWS or its associated add-ons affect book content. In fact, you gain access to these cool additions:

❯❯ Cheat sheet: You remember using crib notes in school to make a better mark on a test, don’t you? You do? Well, a cheat sheet is sort of like that. It provides you with some special notes about tasks that you can do with AWS that not every other person knows. To find the cheat sheet for this book, go to www.dummies.com and search for AWS For Developers For Dummies Cheat Sheet. On the page that appears, scroll down the page until your cursor turns the AWS For Developers For Dummies Cheat Sheet link blue; then click it. The cheat sheet contains really neat information such as figuring out which service you want to use.

❯❯ Updates: Sometimes changes happen. For example, I might not have seen an upcoming change when I looked into my crystal ball during the writing of this book. In the past, this possibility simply meant that the book became outdated and less useful, but you can now find updates to the book at www.dummies.com.

In addition to these updates, check out the blog posts with answers to reader questions and demonstrations of useful book-related techniques at http://blog.johnmuellerbooks.com/.

❯❯ Companion files: Hey! Who really wants to type all the code in the book manually? Most readers prefer to spend their time actually working with Python, performing tasks using AWS, and seeing the interesting things they can do, rather than typing. Fortunately for you, the examples used in the book are available for download, so all you need to do is read the book to learn AWS usage techniques. To get the source code, go to www.dummies.com and search AWS For Developers For Dummies. Scroll down to the graphic of the book cover and click it. Click the More About This Book box that appears and then the Download tab to find the files.

Where to Go from Here

It’s time to start your AWS adventure! If you’re completely new to AWS, you should start with Chapter 1 and progress through the book at a pace that allows you to absorb as much of the material as possible. Chapter 2 is especially important because it helps you understand what Amazon means by free-tier services. You should also read Chapter 3, even if you have experience with AWS, because it provides information about the services discussed in the book.

Readers who have some exposure to AWS must still work through the latter half of Chapter 2 because it shows how to obtain your developer key. After that, you can move directly to Chapter 4. You can always go back to earlier chapters as necessary when you have questions. However, you do need to understand how each technique works before moving to the next one. Every technique and procedure has important lessons for you, and you can miss vital content if you start skipping too much information.