We teach AWS inside our 10-week Cloud Computing & DevOps course. Most of it is in Week 4, and you keep using AWS until the last week. You learn to open a safe account, run servers, store files, build a private network, connect a database and keep costs under control. Everything is practised on your own AWS account.
What AWS is and why it matters
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is Amazon's cloud. Instead of buying a server, you rent one and switch it off when you are done. Many companies run their websites, apps and databases on it, so cloud and DevOps job posts often ask for it.
Clicking around the AWS console is the easy part. The hard part is doing it safely. A good cloud junior gives each person only the access they need, keeps the database away from the open internet, and never leaves a forgotten server running up a bill. That is what we teach.
What you learn
This list comes from the course syllabus. We teach these services and nothing is added for show.
| Area | What you practise |
|---|---|
| Account safety | MFA (a second login step), no keys on the root account, the Free plan, and budget alarms at USD 1, 5 and 20 |
| IAM (who can do what) | Users, groups, roles and policies with least privilege, which means only the access a person or service needs. A database password kept in AWS Secrets Manager and read by a role allowed to read only that secret. |
| Servers and storage | EC2 servers, security groups (a firewall around each server), tagging, the stop versus terminate cost trap, EBS snapshots, and S3 buckets with versioning on and public access blocked |
| Networks and databases | A VPC (your private network on AWS) with public and private subnets, and RDS Postgres in the private subnet with backups |
| Scaling and watching | An Application Load Balancer, Auto Scaling, and CloudWatch alarms. Later you search logs with CloudWatch Logs Insights. |
| Cost and automation | The AWS CLI (AWS from the terminal), a Python boto3 script that finds idle resources, Cost Explorer, pricing models and a teardown checklist |
You also get a short look at the same pieces on Microsoft Azure, so you can see how another cloud names them.
How AWS runs through the rest of the course
Week 4 is not the end of AWS. It comes back in almost every later week:
- Week 5: you push container images to a registry such as ECR.
- Week 6: your GitHub Actions pipeline logs in to AWS with a short-lived role through OIDC, so no secret key is stored anywhere.
- Week 7: you build AWS resources with Terraform, which turns your setup into code, and keep its state in S3.
- Week 8: your mentor shows EKS, the AWS Kubernetes service. You practise Kubernetes on a free local cluster instead, because EKS bills by the hour.
- Week 9: you find the cause of a fault from logs, including CloudWatch Logs Insights.
- Week 10: you rebuild your final project from one README, then tear it down with terraform destroy, and review its cost and security.
What you build and practise
Every week your mentor breaks something on purpose. You find the cause by reading the logs and fix it. This is the part of cloud work that tutorials skip.
You also build one final project, picked with your mentor in Week 4 and grown a step at a time. Two of the options in the project pool are built on AWS: a containerised three-tier app deployed on AWS with CI/CD, and an AWS stack built with Terraform that must stay under a USD 10 monthly cap. The list changes for each batch.
The AWS Cloud Practitioner exam
The course prepares you for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam (CLF-C02). Practice sets start in Week 4. You book and pay for the exam with AWS yourself. In Week 10 your mentor walks you through what to study next, such as Solutions Architect Associate. Our guide on which AWS certification to take first explains how the exams fit together.
Who it suits
- Complete beginners. Weeks 1 to 3 cover Linux, Git and networking before you touch AWS, so you understand what you are building.
- IT support staff who want to move into cloud work.
- Developers who want to know where their code runs after they push it.
- System admins moving from their own servers to the cloud.
- Freelancers who want to offer hosting and setup work.
You need a laptop with at least 8GB of RAM. Before Week 4, open a new AWS account on the Free plan. Sign-up asks for a card for a small test charge, and a dollar prepaid card from a Nepali bank works. Start early, because activation can take a day. Our post on what you can practise on the AWS Free Tier explains how the Free plan works now.
Taught inside the full course
AWS is one part of Cloud Computing & DevOps, which also covers Linux, Docker, GitHub Actions, Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes and monitoring. The course page has the full week-by-week plan. Classes are in our Old Baneshwor classroom, with live online seats for students outside Kathmandu.
Common questions
Can I join only the AWS part?
No. AWS is taught as part of the full Cloud Computing & DevOps course. It builds on the Linux and networking weeks before it, and later weeks use it again with Terraform and CI/CD.
Do I need my own AWS account?
Yes. Open a new account on the Free plan before Week 4. Sign-up needs a card for a small test charge, and a dollar prepaid card from a Nepali bank works.
Will I get a big AWS bill during the course?
The labs are planned around the Free plan. You set budget alarms on day one of the AWS week, follow a teardown checklist, and costly services like EKS are shown by the mentor only.
Does the course prepare me for an AWS certification?
Yes, for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02). Practice sets start in Week 4, and you pay the exam fee to AWS directly.