AWS
40 AWS terms explained simply, ordered from basic to advanced. Start at the top if the topic is new to you.
Basic
Amazon Bedrock
A single AWS service to call AI models from Anthropic, Meta, Amazon and others.
Amazon CloudFront
AWS's CDN: copies of your content kept close to users all over the world.
Amazon CloudWatch
The dashboard and alarm system that watches everything running in your AWS account.
Amazon DynamoDB
A key-value database that answers in milliseconds no matter how big the table gets.
Amazon EC2
Virtual computers you rent by the hour, in any size, and switch off when done.
Amazon Lightsail
The simple corner of AWS: a ready-made server for a flat monthly price.
Amazon RDS
A ready-made relational database that AWS keeps patched, backed up and running.
Amazon Route 53
AWS's DNS service: it turns your domain name into the address of your servers.
Amazon S3
A giant online drawer for files, rented by the gigabyte.
AWS account and billing
What an AWS account is, how you get charged, and how to avoid a surprise bill.
AWS Amplify
A shortcut for building and publishing web and mobile apps on AWS.
AWS Lambda
Run a piece of code only when something happens, with no server to manage.
IAM
The rulebook that says who can do what in your AWS account.
Regions and Availability Zones
Where AWS physically lives: cities worldwide, each split into separate data centers.
Intermediate
Amazon API Gateway
The front door of your API: it receives requests and passes them to your code.
Amazon Athena
Run SQL directly on files sitting in S3, with no database to set up.
Amazon Cognito
Sign-up, login and passwords for your app, handled by AWS instead of you.
Amazon EBS
The virtual hard drive of an EC2 instance, kept alive even when the instance stops.
Amazon ECR
A private warehouse on AWS for your container images, ready to be deployed.
Amazon ECS and Fargate
AWS runs your containers; with Fargate you never see the servers at all.
Amazon ElastiCache
A managed in-memory cache that keeps hot data close so apps answer instantly.
Amazon EventBridge
A switchboard that routes "something happened" messages to whoever cares.
Amazon OpenSearch Service
Managed search engine on AWS, for site search boxes and digging through logs.
Amazon Redshift
AWS's data warehouse: SQL over huge tables, built for analysis rather than apps.
Amazon SageMaker
The AWS workshop for building, training and serving machine learning models.
Amazon SNS
One message in, many copies out: a megaphone for systems.
Amazon SQS
A waiting line for messages between programs, so none of them gets lost.
Amazon VPC
Your own private slice of the AWS network, with walls you draw yourself.
AWS Backup
One place to schedule, keep and restore backups of your AWS data.
AWS CloudFormation
Describe your AWS infrastructure in a text file; AWS builds it exactly like that.
AWS CloudTrail
The logbook of an AWS account: who did what, when, and from where.
AWS Glue
AWS's service for finding, describing and cleaning up data, with no servers to run.
AWS KMS
AWS's vault for encryption keys: you use them, but they never leave.
AWS Organizations
One place to group, govern and pay for many AWS accounts at once.
AWS Secrets Manager
A locked vault for passwords and API keys, so they never live in your code.
AWS Shield
AWS's protection against DDoS attacks, on by default for everyone.
AWS WAF
A filter in front of your website that reads each request and blocks the bad ones.
