Educative CloudLabs: Get hands-on with in-demand cloud skills
Get instant access to cloud services with Educative CloudLabs!
This post is originally from the Educative Blog.
Cloud has become a fixture in the tech landscape over the past few years — and the demand for cloud skills has skyrocketed. So, after receiving many requests from learners for cloud courses, we're thrilled to announce the launch of Educative CloudLabs.
Educative CloudLabs provides guided, interactive projects — 31 of them to start — that allow you to work directly with real cloud services right inside your Educative dashboard. You'll be free to interact with a wide range of cloud services without going through a single setup.
When we first set out to design Educative CloudLabs, we aimed to make the learning process as seamless and accessible as possible. This meant getting rid of some of the obstacles new learners faced: fees, setup, and cleanup.
At Educative, we believe the deepest learning happens by doing. CloudLabs are designed so that you're not just passively learning about cloud services but actively using them, tinkering with them, and emerging with skills that have real-world applications.
Today, I'll provide a brief overview of a few of my favorite CloudLabs — and break down some of the essential skills and technologies you can expect to develop with them.
Let's get started!
Here’s what Educative CloudLabs offers you
Let’s start by taking a quick look at four of our most popular CloudLabs. We’ll dive into the technologies they cover and the applied skills they teach in order to give you a sense of what the projects are like.
I'll also provide some perspective on the value that these skills provide through their practical applications. As a former hiring manager, I know that getting a clear picture of how different tools and technologies are used in a business context is especially helpful for beginners looking to identify the most critical skills to acquire to reach their career goals.
Each of these CloudLabs addresses a distinct area of AWS – from computing (EC2), storage and content delivery (S3 and CloudFront), and database management (RDS) to security (IAM). This is just a peek at what is available. Currently, we offer 31 unique CloudLabs, each focusing on different aspects of cloud computing and requiring around 1 to 2 hours to complete.
1) Configuring a Static Website with S3 and CloudFront
This CloudLab teaches you how to host a static website using AWS S3 and distribute them globally using CloudFront as a content delivery network (CDN) service. By understanding how to configure and utilize these services together, you can achieve efficient website hosting with improved performance and global reach.
Duration: 1 hour
Level: Beginner
Key Skills: AWS S3, CloudFront, Static Website Configuration
Practical Applications:
One great real-world example of how AWS S3 and CloudFront is Hulu. Hulu uses CloudFront, a Content Delivery Network (CDN), to quickly deliver live and on-demand video content to users. CloudFront has servers distributed globally (edge locations) that cache content to provide end users with low-latency delivery and high data transfer speeds to end users. Hulu uses Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) for storing its video content. S3 is designed for large-capacity, low-cost file storage in the cloud, which is ideal for storing large video files.
AWS S3 is also used by Hulu's direct competitor, Netflix, to store and move digital assets such as movie files, images, and metadata. Netflix does use its own CDN (OpenConnect) over CloudFront. However, it makes plenty of financial sense (amongst other reasons) for a company as large as Netflix to invest its capital in developing an in-house CDN instead of going through a third party.
In short, learning how to leverage AWS S3 and CloudFront is an excellent career move, and understanding how to configure a static website is a solid place to start. These services are used across a wide range of industries for hosting websites and delivering content. If you're looking to build a career in web development, these skills can provide a significant edge in the job market.
2) Working with Instances: An Amazon EC2 Walkthrough
This CloudLab focuses on creating and managing Amazon EC2 instances, allowing you to host web servers and applications. One unique aspect is the hands-on experience in launching an EC2 instance and testing the hosted web service through the browser and EC2 Instance Connect service. This lab provides practical knowledge in working with virtual servers and understanding their role in the AWS ecosystem.
Duration: 45 minutes
Level: Beginner
Key Skills: AWS EC2, Virtual Servers
Practical Applications:
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a service that launches instances, also known as virtual servers, that can host web pages and other applications. Amazon EC2 provides scalable computing capacity in the AWS Cloud ecosystem.
Airbnb uses EC2 to automatically distribute incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances, ensuring that the application remains robust and responsive, regardless of the load volume. EC2 provides the computing power needed for their application, Memcache, and search servers, allowing them to quickly scale up (or down) the number of server instances needed based on traffic and demand. Another benefit of using EC2 is that it allows Airbnb to be scalable and reliable while staying savvy about cost efficiency.
From a hiring manager's perspective, proficiency with Amazon EC2 demonstrates a fundamental understanding of cloud-based resources and suggests that a candidate can scale applications according to fluctuating demand. While the former is vital for many AWS roles, the latter can save the company resources and funding.
A thorough understanding of EC2 demonstrates a candidate's ability to manage resources effectively and is a powerful asset for any professional looking to go into DevOps, IT, or systems engineering.
Keeping in mind the tech trends, EC2 can help you a lot to understand cloud-based resources. A thorough understanding of EC2 demonstrates that you can effectively manage resources. Moreover, you can be a powerful asset to your company if you plan to get into DevOps, IT, or systems engineering.
The candidate’s ability to effectively manage resources can be a powerful asset for the company
3) Working with Relational Databases: A Beginner's Guide to AWS RDS
This CloudLab equips you with skills in using Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), which forms the backbone of many applications in the cloud ecosystem. Here, the learning emphasizes creating, configuring, and connecting to a database instance and optimizing database performance. Proficiency in AWS RDS is crucial for managing and scaling cloud-based databases, making it particularly valuable for data management and back-end development roles.
Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Level: Beginner
Key Skills: AWS Cloud Services, Databases, Cloud Deployment
Practical Applications:
Amazon RDS is essentially used to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. Back in 2011, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used Amazon RDS (in addition to a host of other AWS services that include the aforementioned EC2 and CloudFront services) to capture, store, and analyze images collected from the Mars Exploration Rover and the Mars Science Laboratory missions. Using Amazon RDS meant that NASA could allocate more resources to research and less to operating and maintaining a database.
From a hiring manager's perspective, proficiency with AWS RDS demonstrates the ability to manage and scale cloud-based databases efficiently. A candidate skilled in AWS RDS would likely have a firm grasp of relational databases, SQL, and other crucial database administration tasks. Understanding AWS RDS would also imply a level of cloud competency that would enable them to leverage this technology to save time, energy, and resources.
4) Securing AWS Resources: Managing Access with IAM
This CloudLab focuses on AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and its role in securely managing access to AWS resources. You'll learn to create IAM users, set up S3 bucket access, adjust access levels, and utilize Lambda functions. IAM skills are essential for implementing granular access control and ensuring the security of AWS resources.
Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Level: Beginner
Key Skills: AWS IAM, Lambda Functions, S3 Bucket Configuration, Access Levels
Practical Applications:
In real-world scenarios, managing access to your AWS resources securely is a critical task. Security is paramount in industries like healthcare, government, or finance industries, where sensitive data is handled. AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is highly regarded in the industry for its robust security and access control capabilities, specifically for its fine-grained control, scalability, flexibility, and integration with existing AWS services.
Generally speaking, IAM proficiency is sought after in roles such as cloud architects, system administrators, security engineers, and DevOps engineers. Furthermore, with the increasing need for privacy and data protection, knowledge of IAM's access control capabilities can benefit almost any role within the AWS ecosystem.
These CloudLabs are just a sampling of some of our available courses. Still, I hope I've painted a decent picture of the widespread and growing relevance of cloud technology in the modern tech landscape.
Try Educative CloudLabs and tell us what you think!
You can expect more CloudLabs on the way as we continually work on developing more experiences catering to the broad spectrum of requests we've received. Educative CloudLabs is more than just a tool — it's an invitation to experience some of the most important and innovative technologies in today's tech industry.
For those of you who have considered delving into cloud technologies but haven't quite taken the plunge yet, I strongly encourage you to check out Educative CloudLabs.
Regardless of your previous exposure to cloud computing, I'm confident you will come out of the experience with newfound knowledge, practical skills, and, most importantly, a sense of accomplishment.
Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey. Your feedback and thoughts are incredibly valuable to us as we continue to evolve and refine CloudLabs, and we eagerly look forward to hearing about your experiences.
Happy learning!