Getting started with AWS

 We will learn how to setup AWS account, how to access AWS resources using AWS CLI, how to leverage VS Code to view AWS resources. 

AWS documentation links for getting started guides:

https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/?e=gs2020&p=console/#Get_to_Know_the_AWS_Cloud

https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/guides/setup-cdk/

https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/?e=gs2020&p=console/#Launch_Your_First_Application

Setting up AWS account:

1. Create Amazon Free Tier account: https://portal.aws.amazon.com/billing/signup?refid=ps_a131l0000085ejvqam&trkcampaign=acq_paid_search_brand&redirect_url=https%3A%2F%2Faws.amazon.com%2Fregistration-confirmation#/start

- Provide your details (email, username, billing information, and make sure you select basicsupport-free option).

- Upon successful signup, we will be seeing a confirmation like this:

2. Signin as root user: provide your login information (email, password) and we will be able to see our aws dashboard. 

3. Access AWS Management Console:

4. Follow this great documentation provided by AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/?e=gs2020&p=console/#Get_to_Know_the_AWS_Cloud

Using the above documentation link, we can find the best practices on how to setup our AWS cloud account. 

Let us start making progress by following this guide:

Setting up AWS environment: https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/guides/setup-environment/

Adding MFA:

- select "IAM" service, and add MFA (Multi Factor Authentication).  

- once we select "add MFA", it will take us to this page- and we need to select "Activate MFA"

- select "Virtual MFA device" and hit Continue: 

- I used "Google Authenticator" app as my MFA device.  Scan the QR Code using the app, and enter 2 MFA codes. Once we successfully add the device, we can see our device under MFA. 

- once we add the MFA, we can see the IAM dashboard as:

Create IAM Group -> 

Now, we can proceed with creating user groups. As it is not advised to use root user for everything. We have to follow the least access privilege principle to keep our accounts more secure. 

Enter user group name: admins

Attach permission policies: search for "administrator access" & select it

Now we can see admins group getting created. 

Create IAM User ->

select "Add users"

username: soletechie

enable both programmatic access (to use AWS resources using CLI) and password - to access management console. 

Note: 

- we can create our account alias if we don't want to use our account ID to login to AWS console

- To create alias, go to IAM dashboard, and to your right, you can find your AWS account ID information, where you will have the option to create alias. 

- Aliases must be unique, once you give a unique alias name, you will be able to sign in to AWS management console using this alias. 

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Setting up AWS-CLI:

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- Use this link to setup AWS CLI (latest version v2) based on your operating system: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/getting-started-install.html

- To download macOS package file: https://awscli.amazonaws.com/AWSCLIV2.pkg

- once you run the installer, we will be able to see the software installed successfully. 

- To verify if AWS CLI is successfully installed:

Time to CONFIGURE:

- type command - "aws configure" and provide your access key id, aws secret access key, default region name and default output format. 

More detailed information on how to configure AWS CLI:https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-chap-configure.html

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Setting up Cloud9: (use this only if we want to use browser based development tool)

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- use this link to setup Cloud9. https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/guides/setup-environment/module-four/?refid=ps_a131l0000085ejvqam&trkcampaign=acq_paid_search_brand

- cloud9 is a free cloud based IDE that we can run using our browser. It supports programming languages including Python, JavaScript. So, we can work on our project basically using our browser rather than dealing with environment setups specific to our home/office laptops. 

- AWS CLI command to spin up & access & destroy cloud9 environment. we use environment ID to access and delete the cloud9 environment.

aws cloud9 create-environment-ec2 --name getting-started --description "Getting started with AWS Cloud9." --instance-type t3.micro --automatic-stop-time-minutes 60

{ "environmentId": "8a34f51ce1e04a08882f1e811bd706EX" }

aws cloud9 delete-environment --environment-id <environmentID>

- To access the cloud 9 environment: https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ide/<environment ID>?region=us-west-2

Note:

To dive deeper: https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/?e=gs2020&p=console/#Dive_Deeper

Must use VS Code Extensions for anyone working on Cloud

Here are the list of VS Code extensions that anyone working on cloud technologies can use to speed up their development. 

To download any extension, refer to the extension tab on your VS code window:

As we will manage all our cloud resources using Terraform, we will start with Terraform Autocomplete Extension. 

1. Terraform Extensions

Terraform: to manage terraform resources directly from VS Code. 

Terraform Autocomplete: useful when we are creating terraform resources.

2. Docker: To build, manage and deploy docker containers from VS Code.

3. Python: extension that provides python interpreter

4. Prettier-Code formatter:

5. Markdown Preview: 

6. Git:  

Git History:

Git Graph:

Now we can select the below extensions, and click on install. 

AWS VSCode Extensions:

1. AWS Toolkit: To interact with AWS resources directly from VS Code. Helpful in taking a look of AWS resources without having to login into console, provides us with a very cool UI to get a quick overview of our resources.

Upon successful installation, we can find AWS on the left toolbar as shown below:

2. AWS CLI Configure: To use the AWS profiles directly, will be very handy when we want to use multiple AWS accounts and want to manage them separately. Realtime use-case would be when we want to access AWS resources from different environments like PROD environment or DEV environment.

3. AWS boto3: boto3 is a python library that will help us communicate with AWS resources

4. Sort AWS IAM Policy: will be a lot of help when we want to prepare IAM document especially when we are dealing with too many AWS resources in the same document. Unless they are really sorted, IAM policy can quickly become a mess. 

5. AWS Step Functions Constructor: Helps us to visualize the AWS step functions directly on the VSCode, without having to check the document definition on the console. 

Azure VSCode Extensions:

1. Azure Account:

2. Azure Tools:

The above extension is a package installer - will install or download the following Azure extensions as well:

- Azure Functions

- Azure Resources

- Azure CLI Tools

- Azure App Service

- Azure Resource Manager (ARM) tools

- Azure Databases

- Azure Storage

- Azure Pipelines

- Azure Virtual Machines

- ARM Template Viewer

Google Cloud (GCP) Extensions:

1. Cloud Code: 

2. Google Cloud Spanner Driver: