Amazon Certificate Training Labs


Lab 1: Exploring and Interacting with the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI

Lab 1: Exploring and Interacting with the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI

Lab overview

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment is an integrated collection of hardware and software services designed to provide quick and inexpensive use of resources. The AWS API sits atop the AWS environment. An API represents a way to communicate with a resource. There are different ways to interact with AWS resources, but all interaction uses the AWS API. The AWS Management Console provides a simple web interface for AWS. The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) is a unified tool to manage your AWS services through the command line. Whether you access AWS through the AWS Management Console or using the command line tools, you are using tools that make calls to the AWS API.

This lab follows the Architecting Fundamentals module, which focuses on the core requirements for creating workloads in AWS. This lab reinforces module discussions on the what, where, and how of building AWS workloads. Students first explore the features of the AWS Management Console and then use the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) API to deploy and test connectivity to an Amazon S3 bucket using two different methods:

OBJECTIVES

After completing this lab, you should be able to do the following:

ICON KEY

Various icons are used throughout this lab to call attention to different types of instructions and notes. The following list explains the purpose for each icon:

Lab 1: Exploring and Interacting with the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI

Scenario

The lab environment provides you with the following resources to get started: an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), the necessary underlying network structure, a security group allowing the HTTP protocol over port 80, an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance with the Amazon CLI installed, and an associated Amazon EC2 instance profile. The instance profile contains the permissions necessary to allow Session Manager, a capability of AWS Systems Manager, to access the Amazon EC2 instance.

The following diagram shows the interactive flow of the AWS API for creating AWS services and resources used in the lab through the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI.

Lab-1-Overview.png

AWS SERVICES NOT USED IN THIS LAB

AWS services not used in this lab are deactivated in the lab environment. In addition, the capabilities of the services used in this lab are limited to only what the lab requires. Expect errors when accessing other services or performing actions beyond those provided in this lab guide.

Lab 1: Exploring and Interacting with the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI

Steps

Task 1: Explore and configure the AWS Management Console

In this task, you explore the AWS Management Console and the unified search tool. You then configure the Region, widgets, and services.

 Learn more: The AWS Management Console provides secure sign-in using your AWS account root user credentials or AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) account credentials. When you first sign in, the user credentials are authenticated and the home page is displayed. The home page provides access to each service console and offers a single place to access the information you need to perform your AWS related tasks. For more information, see What is the AWS Management Console?.

TASK 1.1: CHOOSE AN AWS REGION

In this task, you choose an AWS Region that specifies where your resources are managed. Regions are sets of AWS resources located in the same geographical area.

  1. On the navigation bar, choose the Region selector displayed at the top-right corner of the console, and then choose the Region to which you want to switch.

The Region on the console home page is now changed to the Region you chose.

 Caution: If the chosen Region opens up a different webpage instead of the console home page, choose Cancel and try to choose a different Region.

Next, you configure the default Region.

  1. To open the General Settings page, click gear icon from menu bar.

  2. Click on More user settings.

The Unified Settings page is displayed.

  1. In the Localization and default Region section, choose Edit.

  2. For Default Region, select any Region from the dropdown menu.

  3. Choose Save settings.

A  Successfully updated localization and Region settings message is displayed on top of the screen.

 Caution: If the current Region shown on the Region selector in the top-right corner is the same Region you choose in the default Region dropdown list, you will not see the success message with Go to new default Region. Try choosing a different Region from the dropdown menu to see this message and complete the next step.

  1. Choose Go to new default Region.

The Unified Settings page is displayed with the Region set to the Default Region you chose.

 Note: If you do not choose a default Region, the last Region you visited becomes your default.

  1. Choose the AWS logo displayed in the upper-left-hand corner to return to the console home page.

  2. On the navigation bar, choose the Region selector displayed at the top-right corner of the console, and then choose the Region that matches the LabRegion value located to the left of these instructions.

 Caution: Verify that you are in the correct region that matches to the LabRegion value located to the left of these instructions.

TASK 1.2: SEARCH WITH THE AWS MANAGEMENT CONSOLE

In this task, you explore the search box on the navigation bar, which provides a unified search tool for locating AWS services and features, service documentation, and the AWS Marketplace.

  1. To open a console for a service, go to the  Search box in the navigation bar of the AWS Management Console, and enter .

The more characters you type, the more the search refines your results.

  1. To narrow the results to the type of content that you want, choose one of the categories on the left navigation pane.

  2. To quickly navigate to a service or popular features of a service, in the Services section, hover over the AWS Cloud Map service name in the results and choose the link.

The AWS Cloud Map console page is displayed.

 Note: For more details about a documentation result or AWS Marketplace result, hover on the result title and choose a link.

  1. Choose the AWS logo displayed in the upper-left-hand corner to return to the console home page.

TASK 1.3: ADD AND REMOVE FAVORITES

In this task, you explore the AWS Management Console to add AWS services to your Favorites list and remove added services from the Favorites list.

Add a service to the list of favorites

  1. On the navigation bar, choose Services to open a full list of services.

  2. From the left navigation menu, choose All services or Recently visited, and then choose a service from the list that you want to add as a favorite.

  3. To the left of the service name, select the star.

 Note: Repeat the previous step to add more services to your Favorites list.

  1. To view the list of favorite services, from the left navigation menu, choose Favorites.

 Note: Alternatively, Favorites are pinned and visible on the navigation bar at the top of the console window.

Remove a service from the list of favorites

  1. On the navigation bar, choose Services to open a full list of services.

  2. In the Favorites list, deselect the star next to the name of a service you wish to remove.

 Note: Alternatively, in the Recently visited list or All services list, deselect the star next to the name of a service that is in your Favorites list.

TASK 1.4: OPEN A CONSOLE FOR A SERVICE

  1. On the navigation bar, choose Services to open a full list of services.

  2. Choose a service under Favorites or Recently visited or All services to quickly navigate to a specific service.

The chosen service console page is displayed.

  1. Choose the AWS logo displayed in the upper-left-hand corner to return to the AWS Management Console home page.

TASK 1.5: CREATE AND USE DASHBOARD WIDGETS

In this task, you learn about the widgets that display important information about your AWS environment and provide shortcuts to your services. You can customize your experience by adding and removing widgets, rearranging them, or changing their size.

  1. To add a widget, choose + Add widgets.

The Add widgets window is displayed.

  1. In the Add widgets menu, choose the title bar at the top of the widget that you want to add and then drag the widget on the console page.

  2. To rearrange a widget, configure the following:

  1. To resize a widget, configure the following:

 Note: You cannot adjust the size of the Welcome to AWS, Explore AWS, and AWS Health widgets.

  1. To remove a widget, configure the following:

 Congratulations! You have explored the AWS Management Console and learned to customize your console home screen.

Task 2: Create an Amazon S3 bucket using the AWS Management Console

In this task, you create and configure a new Amazon S3 bucket in the LabRegion using the AWS Management Console.

 Caution: Verify that you are in the correct region that matches to the LabRegion value located to the left of these instructions.

 Learn more: Amazon S3 is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Customers can use Amazon S3 to store and protect any amount of data for a range of use cases, such as data lakes, websites, mobile applications, backup and restore, archive, enterprise applications, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and big data analytics. For more information, see What is Amazon S3?.

Task2.png

  1. On the Services menu, choose All Services.
  2. On the left navigation menu, scroll down the list and choose Storage.
  3. From the Storage list, choose S3.

 Note: You can also search for  in the search bar  Search at the top of the console.

  1. In the navigation pane on the left-hand side of the console, choose Buckets.

  2. Choose Create bucket.

The Create bucket page is displayed.

  1. In the General configuration section, for Bucket name, enter .

 Note: Replace NUMBER in the bucket name with a random number. This ensures that you have a unique name.

 Note: Amazon S3 bucket names must be globally unique and Domain Name System (DNS) compliant.

  1. The AWS Region should match the LabRegion value found to the left of these lab instructions.

  2. Leave all other settings on this page as the default configurations.

  3. Choose Create bucket at the bottom of the screen.

 In terms of implementation, you can create a bucket using the Amazon S3 API, but you performed the same operation using the Amazon S3 console instead. The console uses the Amazon S3 APIs to send requests to Amazon S3.

A  Successfully created bucket "labbucket-xxxxx" message is displayed on top of the screen.

The S3 console is displayed. The newly created bucket is displayed among the list of all the buckets for the account.

 Congratulations! You have created a new Amazon S3 bucket with the default configuration.

Task 3: Upload an object into the Amazon S3 bucket using the S3 console

In this task, you upload an object into the previously created S3 bucket using the S3 console.

  1. To open the context (Right-click) menu, choose this image link and choose the option to save the image to your computer.

 Note: The method to save files varies by web browser. Choose the appropriately worded option from your context menu.

  1. In the Amazon S3 console, choose the labbucket-xxxxx bucket.

  2. Choose Upload.

The Upload page is displayed.

  1. Choose Add files.

  2. Browse to and choose the HappyFace.jpg picture you downloaded.

  3. Choose Upload.

A  Upload succeeded message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Choose Close.

 Congratulations! You have uploaded an object into the Amazon S3 bucket.

Task 4: Create an Amazon S3 bucket and uploading an object using the AWS CLI

In this task, you use the AWS CLI to create an Amazon S3 bucket. The AWS CLI is an open-source tool that you can use to interact with AWS services using commands in your command line shell.

TASK 4.1: CREATE A CONNECTION TO THE COMMAND HOST USING SESSION MANAGER

An Amazon EC2 instance pre-configured with the AWS CLI has been provided for you to use in this lab. It has the name Command Host.

Task4.png

  1. At the top of the AWS Management Console, in the search box, search for and choose .

     

  2. In the navigation pane on the left-hand side of the console, choose Instances.

  3. Select  Command Host.

  4. Choose Connect.

The Connect to instance page is displayed.

  1. Choose the Session Manager tab.

 Learn more: With Session Manager, you can connect to Amazon EC2 instances without having to expose the SSH port on your firewall or Amazon VPC security group. For more information, see AWS Systems Manager Session Manager.

  1. Choose Connect.

 Note: Alternatively, you can copy the CommandHostSessionUrl value from the left side of these lab instructions and paste it in a new browser tab. The terminal for the Command Host instance opens.

A new browser tab or window opens with a connection to the Command Host instance.

TASK 4.2: USE HIGH-LEVEL S3 COMMANDS WITH THE AWS CLI

In this task, you access the high-level features of Amazon S3 using the AWS CLI.

  1.  Command: Enter the following command in your Command Host session:

 Tip: To copy the command, hover on it and choose the copy  icon. Paste the command in the Command Host session.

 Note: The following ls command lists all of the buckets owned by the user.

aws s3 ls

  1.  Command: Copy the following command to a text editor, replace NUMBER with the random number you chose for your bucket, and paste the command in the Command Host session.

 Note: The following mb command creates a bucket.

aws s3 mb s3://labclibucket-NUMBER

  1. To run the modified command in your Command Host session, press Enter.

 Expected output:

make_bucket: labclibucket-xxxxx

 Note: To simplify the instructions in this lab, this newly created bucket will be referred to as the labclibucket-NUMBER for the remainder of the instructions, regardless of what bucket name you actually choose in this step.

  1.  Command: Enter the following command in your Command Host session:
aws s3 ls

Notice the newly created bucket in the output list.

  1.  Command: Copy the following command to a text editor, replace labclibucket-NUMBER with the name of the S3 bucket you created in the previous step, and paste the command in the Command Host session.

 Note: The following cp command copies a single file to a specified bucket.

aws s3 cp /home/ssm-user/HappyFace.jpg s3://labclibucket-NUMBER

  1. To run the modified command in your Command Host session, press Enter.

 Expected output:

upload: ../../home/ssm-user/HappyFace.jpg to s3://labclibucket-xxxxx/HappyFace.jpg

  1.  Command: Copy the following command to a text editor, replace labclibucket-NUMBER with the name of the S3 bucket you created in the previous step, and paste the command in the Command Host session.

 Note: The following ls command lists objects under a specified bucket.

aws s3 ls s3://labclibucket-NUMBER

 Notice the uploaded object in the newly created bucket in the output list. You can close the browser tab.

As demonstrated in this task, the high-level Amazon S3 commands simplify managing Amazon S3 objects. Using these commands, you can manage the contents of Amazon S3 within itself and with local directories. The S3 commands are built on top of the operations found in the S3 API commands.

 Congratulations! You have used the AWS CLI to create, list, and copy objects into the Amazon S3 bucket.

Lab 1: Exploring and Interacting with the AWS Management Console and AWS CLI

Conclusion

 Congratulations! You now have successfully:

Lab 2: Building your Amazon VPC Infrastructure


Lab 2: Building your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Lab overview

As an AWS solutions architect, it is important that you understand the overall functionality and capabilities of Amazon Web Service (AWS) and the relationship between the AWS networking components. In this lab, you create an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), a public and a private subnet in a single Availability Zone, public and private routes, a NAT gateway, and an internet gateway. These services are the foundation of networking architecture inside of AWS. This architecture design covers concepts of infrastructure, design, routing, and security.

The following image shows the final architecture for this lab environment:

Lab2-Overview.png

OBJECTIVES

After completing this lab, you should know how to do the following:

ICON KEY

Various icons are used throughout this lab to call attention to different types of instructions and notes. The following list explains the purpose for each icon:

Lab 2: Building your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Scenario

Your team has been tasked with prototyping an architecture for a new web-based application. To define your architecture, you need to have a better understanding of public and private subnets, routing, and Amazon EC2 instance options.

Lab 2: Building your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Steps

Task 1: Create an Amazon VPC in a Region

In this task, you create a new Amazon VPC in the AWS Cloud.

 Learn more: With Amazon VPC, you can provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. You have complete control over your virtual networking environment, including selection of your own IP address ranges, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways. You can also use the enhanced security options in Amazon VPC to provide more granular access to and from the Amazon EC2 instances in your virtual network.

Lab2-VPC.png

  1. At the top of the AWS Management Console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

 Caution: Verify that the Region displayed in the top-right corner of the console is the same as the Region value on the left side of this lab page.

 Note: The VPC management console offers a VPC Wizard, which can automatically create several VPC architectures. However, in this lab you create the VPC components manually.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Your VPCs.

The console displays a list of your currently available VPCs. A default VPC is provided so that you can launch resources as soon as you start using AWS.

  1. Choose Create VPC and configure the following:
  1. Choose Create VPC.

A  You successfully created vpc-xxxxxxxxxx / Lab VPC message is displayed on top of the screen.

The VPC Details page is displayed.

  1. Verify the state of the Lab VPC.

 Expected output: It should display the following:

 The lab VPC has a Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) range of 10.0.0.0/16, which includes all IP addresses that start with 10.0.x.x. This range contains over 65,000 addresses. You later divide the addresses into separate subnets.

  1. From the same page, choose Actions  and choose Edit VPC settings.

The Edit VPC settings page is displayed.

  1. From the DNS settings section, select  Enable DNS hostnames.

This option assigns a friendly Domain Name System (DNS) name to Amazon EC2 instances in the VPC, such as the following:

ec2-52-42-133-255.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com

  1. Choose Save.

A  You have successfully modified the settings for vpc-xxxxxxxxxx / Lab VPC. message is displayed on top of the screen.

Any Amazon EC2 instances launched into this Amazon VPC now automatically receive a DNS hostname. You can also create a more meaningful DNS name (for example, app.company.com) using records in Amazon Route 53.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created your own VPC and now you can launch the AWS resources in this defined virtual network.

Task 2: Create public subnets and private subnets

In this task, you create a public subnet and a private subnet in the lab VPC. To add a new subnet to your VPC, you must specify an IPv4 CIDR block for the subnet from the range of your VPC. You can specify the Availability Zone in which you want the subnet to reside. You can have multiple subnets in the same Availability Zone.

Lab2-Subnets.png

 Note: A subnet is a sub-range of IP addresses within a network. You can launch AWS resources into a specified subnet. Use a public subnet for resources that must be connected to the internet, and use a private subnet for resources that are to remain isolated from the internet.

TASK 2.1: CREATE YOUR PUBLIC SUBNET

The public subnet is for internet-facing resources.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Subnets.
  2. Choose Create subnet and configure the following:
  1. Choose Create subnet.

A  You have successfully created 1 subnet: subnet-xxxxxx message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Verify the state.

 Expected output: It should display the following:

 Note: The VPC has a CIDR range of 10.0.0.0/16, which includes all 10.0.x.x IP addresses. The subnet you just created has a CIDR range of 10.0.0.0/24, which includes all 10.0.0.x IP addresses. These ranges might look similar, but the subnet is smaller than the VPC because of the /24 in the CIDR range.

Now, configure the subnet to automatically assign a public IP address for all instances launched within it.

  1. Select  Public Subnet.

  2. Choose Actions  and choose Edit subnet settings.

The Edit subnet settings page is displayed.

  1. From the Auto-assign IP settings section, select  Enable auto-assign public IPv4 address.

  2. Choose Save.

A  You have successfully changed subnet settings: Enable auto-assign public IPv4 address message is displayed on top of the screen.

 Note: Even though this subnet is named Public Subnet, it is not yet public. A public subnet must have an internet gateway and route to the gateway. You create and attach the internet gateway and route tables in this lab.

TASK 2.2: CREATE YOUR PRIVATE SUBNET

The private subnet is for resources that are to remain isolated from the internet.

  1. Choose Create subnet, and then configure the following:
  1. Choose Create subnet.

A  You have successfully created 1 subnet: subnet-xxxxxx message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Verify the state.

 Expected output: It should display the following:

 Note: The CIDR block of 10.0.2.0/23 includes all IP addresses that start with 10.0.2.x and 10.0.3.x. This is twice as large as the public subnet because most resources should be kept private, unless they specifically need to be accessible from the internet.

Your VPC now has two subnets. However, these subnets are isolated and cannot communicate with resources outside the VPC. Next, you configure the public subnet to connect to the internet through an internet gateway.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created a public subnet and a private subnet in the lab VPC.

Task 3: Create an internet gateway

In this task, you create an internet gateway so that internet traffic can access the public subnet. To grant access to or from the internet for instances in a subnet in a VPC, you create an internet gateway and attach it to your VPC. Then you add a route to your subnet’s route table that directs internet-bound traffic to the internet gateway.

 Learn more: An internet gateway serves two purposes: To provide a target in your VPC route tables for internet-bound traffic, and to perform network address translation (NAT) for instances that have been assigned public IPv4 addresses.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Internet gateways.

  2. Choose Create internet gateway and configure the following:

  1. Choose Create internet gateway.

A  The following internet gateway was created: igw-xxxxxx - Lab IGW. You can now attach to a VPC to enable the VPC to communicate with the internet. message is displayed on top of the screen.

You can now attach the internet gateway to your Lab VPC.

  1. From the same page, choose Actions  and choose Attach to VPC.

  2. For Available VPCs, select Lab VPC from the dropdown menu.

  3. Choose Attach internet gateway.

A  Internet gateway igw-xxxxx successfully attached to vpc-xxxxx message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Verify the state.

 Expected output: It should display the following:

The internet gateway is now attached to your Lab VPC. Even though you have created an internet gateway and attached it to your VPC, you must also configure the route table of the public subnet to use the internet gateway.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created an internet gateway so that internet traffic can access the public subnet.

Task 4: Route internet traffic in the public subnet to the internet gateway

In this task, you create a route table and add a route to the route table to direct internet-bound traffic to your internet gateway and associate your public subnets with your route table. Each subnet in your VPC must be associated with a route table; the table controls the routing for the subnet. A subnet can only be associated with one route table at a time, but you can associate multiple subnets with the same route table.

 Learn more: A route table contains a set of rules, called routes, that are used to determine where network traffic is directed. To use an internet gateway, your subnet’s route table must contain a route that directs internet-bound traffic to the internet gateway. You can scope the route to all destinations not explicitly known to the route table (0.0.0.0/0 for IPv4 or ::/0 for IPv6), or you can scope the route to a narrower range of IP addresses. If your subnet is associated with a route table that has a route to an internet gateway, it’s known as a public subnet.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Route tables.

There is currently one default route table associated with the VPC, Lab VPC. This routes traffic locally. You now create an additional route table to route public traffic to your internet gateway.

  1. Choose Create route table, and then configure the following:
  1. Choose Create route table.

A  Route table rtb-xxxxxxx | Public Route Table was created successfully. message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Choose the Routes tab in the lower half of the page.

 Note: There is one route in your route table that allows traffic within the 10.0.0.0/16 network to flow within the network, but it does not route traffic outside of the network.

You now add a new route to permit public traffic.

  1. Choose Edit routes.
  2. Choose Add route, and then configure the following:
  1. Choose Save changes.

A  Updated routes for rtb-xxxxxxx / Public Route Table successfully message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Choose the Subnet associations tab.
  2. Choose Edit subnet associations.
  3. Select  Public Subnet
  4. Choose Save associations.

A  You have successfully updated subnet associations for rtb-xxxxxxx / Public Route Table. message is displayed on top of the screen.

 Note: The subnet is now public because it has a route to the internet through the internet gateway.

 Congratulations! You have successfully configured the route table.

Task 5: Create a public security group

In this task, you create a security group so that users can access your Amazon EC2 instance. Security groups in a VPC specify which traffic is allowed to or from an Amazon EC2 instance.

 Learn more: You can use Amazon EC2 security groups to help secure instances within an Amazon VPC. By using security groups in a VPC, you can specify both inbound and outbound network traffic that is allowed to or from each Amazon EC2 instance. Traffic that is not explicitly allowed to or from an instance is automatically denied.

 Security: It is recommended to use HTTPS protocol to improve web traffic security. However, to simplify this lab, only HTTP protocol is used.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Security groups.
  2. Choose Create security group, and then configure the following:
  1. In the Inbound rules section, choose Add rule and configure the following:
  1. In the Tags - optional section, choose Add new tag and configure the following:
  1. Choose Create security group.

A  Security group (sg-xxxxxxx | Public SG) was created successfully message is displayed on top of the screen.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created a security group that allows HTTP traffic. You need this in the next task when you launch an Amazon EC2 instance in the public subnet.

Task 6: Launch an Amazon EC2 instance into a public subnet

In this task, you launch an Amazon EC2 instance into a public subnet. To activate communication over the internet for IPv4, your instance must have a public IPv4 address that’s associated with a private IPv4 address on your instance. By default, your instance is only aware of the private (internal) IP address space defined within the VPC and subnet.

Lab2-EC2instance.png

 Learn more: The internet gateway that you created logically provides the one-to-one NAT on behalf of your instance. So when traffic leaves your VPC subnet and goes to the internet, the reply address field is set to the public IPv4 address or Elastic IP address of your instance, and not its private IP address.

  1. At the top of the AWS Management Console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

The Amazon EC2 Management Console is displayed.

TASK 6.1: BEGIN THE INSTANCE CONFIGURATION

  1. From the console navigation menu on the left, choose EC2 Dashboard.
  2. From the Launch instances section, choose Launch instances.

The Launch an instance page is displayed.

TASK 6.2: ADD TAGS TO THE INSTANCE

You can use tags to categorize your AWS resources in different ways, such as by purpose, owner, or environment. You can apply tags to most AWS Cloud resources. Each tag consists of a key and a value, both of which you define. One use of tags is for when you must manage many resources of the same type. You can quickly search for and identify a specific resource by the tag you have applied to it.

In this task, you add a tag to the Amazon EC2 instance.

  1. Locate the Name and tags section.
  2. In the Name field, enter .

 Note: No additional instance tags are required for this lab.

TASK 6.3: SELECT AN AMI

In this task, you choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). The AMI contains a copy of the disk volume used to launch the instance.

  1. Locate the Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image) section.
  2. Ensure that Amazon Linux is selected as the OS.
  3. Ensure that Amazon Linux 2023 AMI is selected in the dropdown menu.

TASK 6.4: CHOOSE THE AMAZON EC2 INSTANCE TYPE

Each instance type allocates a specific combination of virtual CPUs (vCPUs), memory, disk storage, and network performance.

For this lab, use a t3.micro instance type. This instance type has 2 vCPUs and 1 GiB of memory.

  1. Locate the Instance type section.
  2. From the Instance type dropdown menu, choose t3.micro.

TASK 6.5: CONFIGURE KEY PAIR FOR LOGIN

  1. Locate the Key pair (login) section.
  2. From the Key pair name - required dropdown menu, choose Proceed without a key pair (Not recommended) .

TASK 6.6: CONFIGURE INSTANCE NETWORKING

  1. Locate the Network settings section.
  2. Choose Edit.
  3. Configure the following settings from the dropdown menus:

TASK 6.7: CONFIGURE INSTANCE SECURITY GROUPS

You can use security groups to define both the allowed/denied and the inbound/outbound traffic for the elastic network interface. The network interface is attached to an Amazon EC2 instance. Port 80 is the default port for HTTP traffic, and it is necessary for the web server you launch in this lab to work correctly.

  1. For Firewall (security groups), choose  Select existing security group.
  2. From the Common security groups dropdown menu, choose the security group that has a name like Public SG.

TASK 6.8: ADD STORAGE

You can use the Configure storage section to specify or modify the storage options for the instance and add additional Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) disk volumes attached to the instance. The EBS volumes can be configured in both their size and performance.

In this lab, the default storage settings are all that is needed. No changes are required.

TASK 6.9: CONFIGURE USER DATA

  1. Locate and expand the  Advanced details section.
  2. From the IAM instance profile dropdown menu, select the role that has a name like EC2InstProfile.

 Note: To install and configure the new instance as a web server, you provide a user data script that automatically runs when the instance launches.

  1. In the User data - optional section, copy and paste the following:
#!/bin/bash
# To connect to your EC2 instance and install the Apache web server with PHP
yum update -y
yum install -y httpd php8.1
systemctl enable httpd.service
systemctl start httpd
cd /var/www/html
wget  https://us-west-2-tcprod.s3.amazonaws.com/courses/ILT-TF-200-ARCHIT/v7.7.1.prod-ac6a334e/lab-2-VPC/scripts/instanceData.zip
unzip instanceData.zip

The remaining settings on the page can be left at their default values.

TASK 6.10: REVIEW THE INSTANCE LAUNCH

Take a moment to review that the configuration for the Amazon EC2 instance you are about to launch is correct.

  1. Locate the Summary section.
  2. Choose Launch instance.

The Launch an instance page is displayed.

Your Amazon EC2 instance is now launched and configured as you specified.

  1. Choose View all instances.

The Amazon EC2 console is displayed.

  1. Occasionally choose the console refresh button  and wait for Public Instance to display the Instance state as  Running and wait for Status check to pass  2/2 checks passed.

 Note: The Amazon EC2 instance named Public Instance is initially in a Pending state. The instance state then changes to  Running indicating that the instance has finished booting.

 Congratulations! You have successfully launched an Amazon EC2 instance into a public subnet.

Task 7: Connect to a public instance through HTTP

In this task, you connect to the public instance and launch the basic Apache web server page. The inbound rules added earlier that allow HTTP access (port 80) allow you to connect to the web server running Apache.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
  2. Select  Public Instance.
  3. Choose the Networking tab in the lower pane.

 Note: If you need to make any section of the console larger, you can resize the horizontal edges of the containers displayed on the console.

  1. Locate the Public IPv4 DNS value.
  2. Copy  the public DNS value. Do not choose the open address  option, because HTTPS is not set up for this lab environment.
  3. Open a new browser tab and paste the public DNS value for Public Instance in the URL address bar.

The web page hosted on the Amazon EC2 instance is displayed. The page displays the instance ID and the AWS Availability Zone where the Amazon EC2 instance is located.

  1. Close the browser tab and return to the console.

 Congratulations! You have successfully launched an Apache web server in the public subnet and tested the HTTP connection. You can safely close the tab and return to the console.

Task 8: Connect to the Amazon EC2 instance in the public subnet through Session Manager

In this task, you connect to your Amazon EC2 instance in the public subnet using Session Manager.

 Learn more: Session Manager is a fully managed AWS Systems Manager capability that you use to manage your Amazon EC2 instances through an interactive one-click browser-based shell or through the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). You can use Session Manager to start a session with an Amazon EC2 instance in your account. After starting the session, you can run bash commands as you would through any other connection type.

  1. At the top of the AWS Management Console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

     

  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.

  3. Select  Public Instance and choose Connect.

The Connect to instance page is displayed.

  1. Choose the Session Manager tab.

 Learn more: With Session Manager, you can connect to Amazon EC2 instances without needing to expose the SSH port on your firewall or Amazon VPC security group. For more information, see AWS Systems Manager Session Manager.

  1. Choose Connect.

A new browser tab or window opens with a connection to the Public Instance.

 Note: The Session Manager service is not updated in real time. If you experience errors with Session Manager connecting to an Amazon EC2 instance you just launched, ensure that you have given the instance a few minutes to launch, pass health checks, and communicate with the Session Manager service before trying to open a session connection again.

  1.  Command: Enter the following command to change to the home directory (/home/ssm-user/) and test web connectivity using the cURL command:
cd ~
curl -I https://aws.amazon.com/training/

 Expected output:

HTTP/2 200
content-type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
server: Server
date: Wed, 19 Apr 2023 14:43:47 GMT
x-amz-rid: 6HVPS1JY1XW2S1K34Q3Z
set-cookie: aws-priv=eyJ2IjoxLCJldSI6MCwic3QiOjB9; Version=1; Comment="Anonymous cookie for privacy regulations"; Domain=.aws.amazon.com; Max-Age=31536000; Expires=Thu, 18-Apr-2024 14:43:47 GMT; Path=/; Secure
set-cookie: aws_lang=en; Domain=.amazon.com; Path=/
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
x-xss-protection: 1; mode=block
strict-transport-security: max-age=63072000
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-amz-id-1: 6HVPS1JY1XW2S1K34Q3Z
last-modified: Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:58:02 GMT
content-security-policy-report-only: default-src *; connect-src *; font-src * data:; frame-src *; img-src * data:; media-src *; object-src *; script-src *; style-src 'unsafe-inline' *; report-uri https://prod-us-west-2.csp-report.marketing.aws.dev/submit
vary: accept-encoding,Content-Type,Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
x-cache: Miss from cloudfront
via: 1.1 88c333921d5c405e037b84bb8c2dc33e.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)
x-amz-cf-pop: GRU3-P1
x-amz-cf-id: 89R1wtM9vYV0kIQXrEVkcoNzg_C3UfQJIEVkC5BA3xiIH3FD0nVnYw==

 Congratulations! You have successfully connected to your public instance using Session Manager. You can safely close the tab and return to the console.

Task 9: Create a NAT gateway and configuring routing in the private subnet

In this task, you create a NAT gateway and then create a route table to route non-local traffic to the NAT gateway. You then attach the route table to the private subnet. You can use a NAT gateway to allow instances in a private subnet to connect to the internet or other AWS services, but prevent the internet from initiating a connection with those instances.

 Note: To create a NAT gateway, you must specify the public subnet in which the NAT gateway should reside. You must also specify an Elastic IP address to associate with the NAT gateway when you create it. You cannot change the Elastic IP address after you associate it with the NAT gateway. After you’ve created a NAT gateway, you must update the route table associated with one or more of your private subnets to point internet-bound traffic to the NAT gateway. This allows instances in your private subnets to communicate with the internet.

  1. Return to the AWS Management Console browser tab.

  2. At the top of the AWS Management Console, in the search box, search for and choose .

  3. In the left navigation pane, choose NAT gateways.

  4. Choose Create NAT gateway and configure the following:

  1. Choose Create NAT gateway.

A  NAT gateway nat-xxxxxxx | Lab NGW was created successfully. message is displayed on top of the screen.

In the next step, you create a new route table for a private subnet that redirects non-local traffic to the NAT gateway.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Route tables.
  2. Choose Create route table and configure the following:
  1. Choose Create route table.

A  Route table rtb-xxxxxxx | Private Route Table was created successfully. message is displayed on top of the screen.

The private route table is created and the details page for the private route table is displayed.

  1. Choose the Routes tab.

There is currently one route that directs all traffic locally.

You now add a route to send internet-bound traffic through the NAT gateway.

  1. Choose Edit routes.

  2. Choose Add route and then configure the following:

  1. Choose Save changes.

A  Updated routes for rtb-xxxxxxx / Private Route Table successfully message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Choose the Subnet associations tab.
  2. Choose Edit subnet associations.
  3. Select  Private Subnet.
  4. Choose Save associations.

A  You have successfully updated subnet associations for rtb-xxxxxxx / Private Route Table. message is displayed on top of the screen.

This route sends internet-bound traffic from the private subnet to the NAT gateway that is in the same Availability Zone.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created the NAT gateway and configured the private route table.

Task 10: Create a security group for private resources

In this task, you create a security group that allows incoming HTTP traffic from resources assigned to the public security group. In a multi-tiered architecture, resources in a private subnet are should not directly accessible from the internet, however their is a common use case to route web traffic from publicly accessible resources to private resources.

 Learn more: When you specify a security group as the source for a rule, traffic is allowed from the network interfaces that are associated with the source security group for the specified port and protocol. Incoming traffic is allowed based on the private IP addresses of the network interfaces that are associated with the source security group (and not the public IP or Elastic IP addresses). Adding a security group as a source does not add rules from the source security group.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Security groups.
  2. Choose Create security group, and then configure the following:
  1. In the Inbound rules section, choose Add rule and configure the following:
  1. In the Tags - optional section, choose Add new tag and configure the following:
  1. Choose Create security group.

A  Security group (sg-xxxxxxx | Private SG) was created successfully message is displayed on top of the screen.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created the private security group.

Task 11: Launch an Amazon EC2 instance into a private subnet

In this task, you launch an Amazon EC2 instance into a private subnet.

 Learn more: Private instances can route their traffic through a NAT gateway or a NAT instance to access the internet. Private instances use the public IP address of the NAT gateway or NAT instance to traverse the internet. The NAT gateway or NAT instance allows outbound communication but doesn’t allow machines on the internet to initiate a connection to the privately addressed instances.

  1. At the top of the AWS Management Console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

The Amazon EC2 console is displayed.

TASK 11.1: BEGIN THE INSTANCE CONFIGURATION

  1. Choose EC2 Dashboard from the console navigation menu on the left.
  2. Choose Launch instance from the Launch instance section.

The Launch an instance page is displayed. In this task, you add a tag to the Amazon EC2 instance.

  1. Locate the Name and tags section.
  2. Enter  in the Name field.

 Note: No additional instance tags are required for this lab.

TASK 11.3: SELECT AN AMI

In this task, you choose an AMI. The AMI contains a copy of the disk volume used to launch the instance.

  1. Locate the Application and OS Images (Amazon Machine Image) section.
  2. Ensure that Amazon Linux is selected as the OS.
  3. Ensure that Amazon Linux 2023 AMI is selected in the dropdown menu.

TASK 11.4: CHOOSE THE AMAZON EC2 INSTANCE TYPE

Each instance type allocates a specific combination of vCPUs, memory, disk storage, and network performance.

For this lab, use a t3.micro instance type. This instance type has 2 vCPUs and 1 GiB of memory.

  1. Locate the Instance type section.
  2. Choose t3.micro from the Instance type dropdown menu.

TASK 11.5: CONFIGURE KEY PAIR FOR LOGIN

  1. Locate the Key pair (login) section.
  2. Choose Proceed without a key pair (Not recommended)  from the Key pair name - required dropdown menu.

TASK 11.6: CONFIGURE INSTANCE NETWORKING

  1. Locate the Network settings section.
  2. Choose Edit and configure the following settings from the dropdown menus:

TASK 11.7: CONFIGURE INSTANCE SECURITY GROUPS

  1. For Firewall (security groups), choose  Select existing security group
  2. Choose the security group that has a name like Private SG from the Common security groups dropdown menu.

TASK 11.8: ADD STORAGE

You can use the Configure storage section to specify or modify the storage options for the instance and add additional Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) disk volumes attached to the instance. The EBS volumes can be configured in both their size and performance.

In this lab, the default storage settings are all that is needed. No changes are required.

TASK 11.9: CONFIGURE THE IAM INSTANCE PROFILE

  1. Locate and expand the  Advanced details section.
  2. Choose the EC2InstProfile role from the IAM instance profile dropdown menu.

The remaining settings on the page can be left at their default values.

TASK 11.10: CONFIGURE USER DATA

  1. Locate and expand the  Advanced details section.
  2. From the IAM instance profile dropdown menu, select the role that has a name like EC2InstProfile.

 Note: To install and configure the new instance as a web server, you provide a user data script that automatically runs when the instance launches.

  1. In the User data - optional section, copy and paste the following:
#!/bin/bash
# To connect to your EC2 instance and install the Apache web server with PHP
yum update -y
yum install -y httpd php8.1
systemctl enable httpd.service
systemctl start httpd
cd /var/www/html
wget  https://us-west-2-tcprod.s3.amazonaws.com/courses/ILT-TF-200-ARCHIT/v7.7.1.prod-ac6a334e/lab-2-VPC/scripts/instanceData.zip
unzip instanceData.zip

The remaining settings on the page can be left at their default values.

TASK 11.11: REVIEW THE INSTANCE LAUNCH

Take a moment to review that the configuration for the Amazon EC2 instance you are about to launch is correct.

  1. Locate the Summary section.
  2. Choose Launch instance.

The Launch an instance page is displayed.

Your Amazon EC2 instance is now launched and configured as you specified.

  1. Choose View all instances.

The Amazon EC2 console is displayed.

The Amazon EC2 instance name Private Instance is initially in a Pending state. The state then changes to Running, indicating that the instance has finished booting.

  1. Occasionally choose the console refresh button  and wait for the Instance state to change to  Running.

 Congratulations! You have successfully launched an Amazon EC2 instance into a private subnet.

Task 12: Connect to the Amazon EC2 instance in the private subnet

In this task, you connect to the Amazon EC2 instance in the private subnet using Session Manager.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
  2. Select  Private Instance and choose Connect.

The Connect to instance page is displayed.

  1. Choose the Session Manager tab.
  2. Choose Connect.

A new browser tab or window opens with a connection to the Private Instance.

 Note: The Session Manager service is not updated in real time. If you experience errors with Session Manager connecting to an Amazon EC2 instance you just launched, ensure that you have given the instance a few minutes to launch, pass health checks, and communicate with the Session Manager service before trying to open a session connection again.

  1.  Command: Enter the following command to change to the home directory (/home/ssm-user/) and test web connectivity using the cURL command:
cd ~
curl -I https://aws.amazon.com/training/

 Expected output:

HTTP/2 200
content-type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
server: Server
date: Wed, 19 Apr 2023 14:59:09 GMT
x-amz-rid: AZPXJ57K93ERATZV588Z
set-cookie: aws-priv=eyJ2IjoxLCJldSI6MCwic3QiOjB9; Version=1; Comment="Anonymous cookie for privacy regulations"; Domain=.aws.amazon.com; Max-Age=31536000; Expires=Thu, 18-Apr-2024 14:59:08 GMT; Path=/; Secure
set-cookie: aws_lang=en; Domain=.amazon.com; Path=/
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
x-xss-protection: 1; mode=block
strict-transport-security: max-age=63072000
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-amz-id-1: AZPXJ57K93ERATZV588Z
last-modified: Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:58:02 GMT
content-security-policy-report-only: default-src *; connect-src *; font-src * data:; frame-src *; img-src * data:; media-src *; object-src *; script-src *; style-src 'unsafe-inline' *; report-uri https://prod-us-west-2.csp-report.marketing.aws.dev/submit
vary: accept-encoding,Content-Type,Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
x-cache: Miss from cloudfront
via: 1.1 fb6a4eca9caced7b791557c24b8c6606.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)
x-amz-cf-pop: GRU3-P1
x-amz-cf-id: Tjphb1UhSXmtyHvybuq4QIFwzTurEI0g_saLB2nLjlYRiBbHbqn85Q==

  1. Close the Session Manager tab and return to the console.

 Congratulations! You have successfully connected to a private instance using Session Manager.

Lab 2: Building your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Optional Steps

Task 1: Troubleshooting connectivity between the private instance and the public instance

In this optional task, you use the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) to validate a private instance’s network reachability from the public instance.

 Note: This task is optional and is provided in case you have lab time remaining. You can complete this task or skip to the end of the lab.

  1. Return to the AWS Management Console browser tab.
  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.
  3. Select  Private Instance.
  4. On the Details tab, copy the value of Private IPv4 addresses to your clipboard.

 Note: To copy the private IPv4 address, hover over it and choose the copy  icon.

  1. Unselect  Private Instance.
  2. Select  Public Instance.
  3. Choose Connect.

The Connect to instance page is displayed.

  1. Choose the Session Manager tab.
  2. Choose Connect.

A new browser tab or window opens with a connection to the Public Instance.

First, use a curl command to retrieve a header file and confirm is the web app hosted on the private instance is reachable from the public instance.

  1.  Command: Copy the following command to your notepad. Replace PRIVATE_IP with the value of the Private IPv4 address for the Private Instance:
curl PRIVATE_IP

 Expected output:

<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>

  1.  Command: Copy the following command to your notepad. Replace PRIVATE_IP with the value of the Private IPv4 address for the Private Instance:
ping PRIVATE_IP

  1.  Command: Copy and paste the updated command in your terminal and press Enter.

 This is a sample command only. Do not use the following command.

ping 10.0.2.131

  1. After a few seconds, stop the ICMP ping request by pressing CTRL+C.

The ping request to the private instance fails. Your challenge is to use the console and figure out the correct inbound rule required in the Private SG to be able to successfully ping the private instance.

If you have trouble completing the optional task, refer to the Optional Task Solution section at the end of the lab.

Task 2: Retrieving instance metadata

In this optional task, you run instance metadata commands on AWS CLI using a tool such as cURL. Instance metadata is available from your running Amazon EC2 instance. This can be helpful when you write scripts to run from your Amazon EC2 instance.

 Note: This task is optional and is provided in case you have lab time remaining. You can complete this task or skip to the end of the lab .

  1. Return to the browser tab with the AWS Management Console open.

  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Instances.

  3. Select  Public Instance.

  4. Choose Connect.

The Connect to instance page is displayed.

  1. Choose the Session Manager tab.
  2. Choose Connect.

A new browser tab or window opens with a connection to the Public Instance.

  1.  Command: To view all categories of instance metadata from within a running instance, run the following command:
TOKEN=`curl -X PUT "http://169.254.169.254/latest/api/token" -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token-ttl-seconds: 21600"` \
&& curl -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token: $TOKEN" -v http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/

  1.  Command: Run the following command to retrieve the public-hostname (one of the top-level metadata items that were obtained in the preceding command):
curl -H "X-aws-ec2-metadata-token: $TOKEN" -v http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-hostname

 Note: The IP address 169.254.169.254 is a link-local address and is valid only from the instance.

You have successfully learned how to retrieve instance metadata from your running Amazon EC2 instance.

Lab 2: Building your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Conclusion

Creating a VPC with both public and private subnets provides you the flexibility to launch tasks and services in either a public or private subnet. Tasks and services in the private subnets can access the internet through a NAT gateway.

 Congratulations! You now have successfully:

Lab 3: Creating a Database Layer in Your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Lab 3: Creating a Database Layer in Your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Lab overview

A backend database plays an important role in any environment, and the security and access control to this critical resource is vital to any architecture. In this lab, you create an Amazon Aurora database (DB) cluster to manage a MySQL database and an Application Load Balancer (ALB). The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security pillar of the Well-Architected Framework recommends keeping people away from data; as such, the database is separated from the front end using the Application Load Balancer. The Application Load Balancer routes traffic to healthy Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances that hosts the front-end application. This provides high availability and allow communication to the database to happen behind the Application Load Balancer in a private subnet.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this lab, you will be able to do the following:

PREREQUISITES

This lab requires the following:

ICON KEY

Various icons are used throughout this lab to call attention to different types of instructions and notes. The following list explains the purpose for each icon:

Lab 3: Creating a Database Layer in Your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Scenario

Your team has been tasked with prototyping an architecture for a new web-based application. To define your architecture, you need to have a better understanding of load balancers and managed databases, such as Amazon RDS.

LAB ENVIRONMENT

The lab environment provides you with the following resources to get started: an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), underlying necessary network structure, three security groups to control inbound and outbound traffic, two EC2 instances in a private subnet, and an associated EC2 instance profile. The instance profile contains the permissions necessary to allow the AWS Systems Manager Session Manager feature to access the EC2 instance.

The following diagram shows the expected architecture of the important lab resources you build and how they should be connected at the end of the lab.

Lab3-overview.png

AWS SERVICES NOT USED IN THIS LAB

AWS services not used in this lab are turned off in the lab environment. In addition, the capabilities of the services used in this lab are limited to only what the lab requires. Expect to receive errors when accessing other services or performing actions beyond those provided in this lab guide.

Lab 3: Creating a Database Layer in Your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Steps

Task 1: Create an Amazon RDS database

In this task, you create an Aurora DB cluster that is compatible with MySQL. An Aurora DB cluster consists of one or more DB instances and a cluster volume that manages the data for those DB instances.

 Learn more: Amazon Aurora is a fully managed relational database engine that is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. Aurora is part of the managed database service, Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS is a web service that makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. For more information, see What is Amazon Aurora?.

  1. At the top of the AWS Management Console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

     

  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Databases.

  3. Choose Create database.

The Create database page is displayed.

  1. In the Choose a database creation method section, select  Standard create.

  2. In the Engine options section, configure the following:

  1. In the Templates section, select  Dev/Test.

  2. In the Settings section, configure the following:

  1. In the Instance configuration section, configure the following:
  1. In the Availability & durability section, for Multi-AZ deployment, select  Don’t create an Aurora Replica.

 Learn more: Amazon RDS Multi-AZ deployments provide enhanced availability and durability for DB instances, making them a natural fit for production database workloads. When you provision a Multi-AZ DB instance, Amazon RDS automatically creates a primary DB instance and synchronously replicates the data to a standby instance in a different Availability Zone. For more information, see Amazon RDS Multi-AZ.

 Note: Since this lab is about knowing the resources required to build a multi-tier architecture, you do not need to perform a Multi-AZ deployment. You learn how to deploy a Multi-AZ architecture in the next lab.

  1. In the Connectivity section, configure the following:

 Learn more: Subnets are segments of an IP address range in an Amazon VPC that you designate to group your resources based on security and operational needs. A DB subnet group is a collection of subnets (typically private) that you create in an Amazon VPC and then designate for your DB instances. With a DB subnet group, you can specify an Amazon VPC when creating DB instances using the command line interface or API. If you use the console, you can just select the Amazon VPC and subnets you want to use. For more information, see Working with DB subnet groups.

 Learn more: With Amazon VPC, you can launch AWS resources into a virtual network that you have defined. This virtual network closely resembles a traditional network that you would operate in your own data center, with the benefits of using the scalable infrastructure of AWS. For more information, see Amazon VPC VPCs and Amazon RDS.

  1. In the Monitoring section, de-select  Enable Enhanced monitoring

  2. Expand the  Additional configuration main section at the end of the page.

  3. In the Database options section, configure the following:

 Caution: Ensure the correct value for DB cluster parameter group is selected from the dropdown menu. An incorrect value results in errors when building the database replicas.

  1. In the Encryption section, unselect  Enable encryption.

 Learn more: You can encrypt your Amazon RDS instances and snapshots at rest by activating the encryption option for your Amazon RDS DB instance. Data that is encrypted at rest includes the underlying storage for a DB instance, its automated backups, read replicas, and snapshots. For more information, see Encrypting Amazon RDS resources.

  1. In the Maintenance section, unselect  Enable auto minor version upgrade.

 Note: Because the nature of this lab is short lived there is no need to set up a maintenance schedule for the database.

  1. Scroll to the bottom of the screen, then choose Create database.

  2. On the Suggested add-ons for aurora pop-up window, choose Close.

A  Successfully created database aurora message is displayed on top of the screen.

Your Aurora MySQL DB cluster is in the process of launching. The Amazon RDS database can take up to 5 minutes to launch. However, you can continue to the next task.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created an Amazon RDS database.

Task 2: Create and configure an Application Load Balancer

In this task, you create an Application Load Balancer in the public subnets to access the application from a browser. You navigate to the Amazon EC2 console and create an Application Load Balancer into the existing Amazon VPC infrastructure and add the private EC2 instances as a target.

A load balancer serves as the single point of contact for clients. Clients send requests to the load balancer, and the load balancer sends them to targets, such as EC2 instances. To configure your load balancer, you create target groups and then register targets with your target groups.

Lab3-ALB.png

TASK 2.1 : CREATE A TARGET GROUP

In this task, you create a target group and register your targets with the target group. By default, the load balancer sends requests to registered targets using the port and protocol that you specified for the target group.

  1. At the top of the console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

  2. In the left navigation pane, expand the Load Balancing section and choose Target Groups.

  3. Choose Create target group.

The Specify group details page is displayed.

  1. In the Basic configuration section, configure the following:

The remaining settings on the page can be left at their default values.

  1. Choose Next.

The Register targets page is displayed.

  1. In the Available instances section, configure the following:

The instance appears under the Targets section of the page.

  1. Choose Create target group.

A  Successfully created target group: ALBTargetGroup message is displayed on top of the screen.

TASK 2.2 : CREATE AN APPLICATION LOAD BALANCER

In this task, you create an Application Load Balancer. To do that, you must first provide basic configuration information for your load balancer, such as a name, scheme, and IP address type. Then, you provide information about your network and one or more listeners.

  1. In the left navigation pane, expand the Load Balancing section and choose Load Balancers.

  2. Choose Create load balancer.

The Select load balancer type page is displayed.

  1. In the Load balancer types section, for Application Load Balancer card, choose Create.

The Create Application Load Balancer page is displayed.

  1. In the Basic configuration section, configure the following:
  1. In the Network mapping section, configure the following:
  1. In the Security groups section, configure the following:
  1. In the Listeners and routing section, configure the following:
  1. Choose Create load balancer.

A  Successfully created load balancer: LabAppALB message is displayed on top of the screen.

  1. Choose View load balancer.

The load balancer is in the Provisioning state for few minutes and then changes to Active.

 In this task, you created an Application Load Balancer and you added EC2 instances as a target to the load balancer. This task provides a demonstration on how to register a target with a load balancer. In addition to individual EC2 instances, Auto Scaling groups can also be registered as targets for the load balancer. When you use Auto Scaling groups as targets for load balancing, the instances that are launched by the Auto Scaling group are automatically registered with the load balancer. Likewise, EC2 instances that are ended by the Auto Scaling groups are automatically unregistered from the load balancer. Using Auto Scaling groups with a load balancer is demonstrated in the next lab.

 Congratulations! You have successfully created a load balancer, created target groups, and registered the EC2 instances with the target group.

Task 3: Review the Amazon RDS DB instance metadata through the console

In this task, you navigate through the Amazon RDS console to ensure the instance created in Task 1 has completed and is active. You explore the console to learn how to find the connection information for a DB instance. The connection information for a DB instance includes its endpoint, port, and a valid database user.

  1. At the top of the console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Databases.

  3. From the list of DB identifiers, select the hyperlink for the cluster named aurora.

A page with details about the database are displayed.

  1. On the Connectivity & security tab, you can find the endpoint and port number for the database cluster. In general, you need the endpoints and the port number to connect to the database.

  2. Copy and paste the Endpoint name of the writer instance value to a notepad. You need this value later in the lab.

 It should look similar to aurora.cluster-crwxbgqad61a.us-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com.

 Tip: To copy the writer instance endpoint, hover on it and choose the copy  icon.

Lab3-WriterInstance.png

Notice that the status for the endpoints is  Available.

  1. On the Configuration tab, you can find details regarding how the database is currently configured.

  2. On the Monitoring tab, you can monitor metrics for the following items of your database:

 WARNING: Wait for the Status of the aurora DB instance to show as  Available before continuing to the next task.

 Congratulations! You have successfully reviewed the Amazon RDS DB instance metadata through the console.

Task 4: Test the application connectivity to the database

In this task, you identify the Application Load Balancer URL and run a basic HTTP request through the load balancer. You launch the web application installed on the EC2 instances and test the application connectivity to the database.

  1. At the top of the console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Target Groups.

  3. Select  ALBTargetGroup.

  4. In the Targets tab, wait until the instance status is displayed as  healthy.

 Learn more: Elastic Load Balancing periodically tests the ping path on your web server instance to determine health. A 200 HTTP response code indicates a healthy status, and any other response code indicates an unhealthy status. If an instance is unhealthy and continues in that state for a successive number of checks (unhealthy threshold), the load balancer removes it from service until it recovers. Fore more information, see Health checks for your target groups.

  1. In the left navigation pane, choose Load Balancers.

The Load balancers page is displayed.

  1. Copy the DNS name and paste the value in a new browser tab to invoke the load balancer.

 Tip: To copy the DNS name, hover on it and select the copy  icon.

 Expected output: A web page like this is displayed.

application.png

  1. Choose the  Settings tab and then configure the following:
  1. Choose Save.

 The application connects to the database, loads some initial data, and displays information. With this application, you can add, edit, or delete an item from a store’s inventory.

The inventory information is stored in the Amazon RDS MySQL-compatible database you created earlier in the lab. This means that if the web application server fails, the data won’t be lost. It also means that multiple application servers can access the same data.

 Congratulations! You have successfully accessed the web application installed on the EC2 instance through the load balancer.

Optional Task: Creating an Amazon RDS read replica in a different AWS Region

In this challenge task, you create a cross-Region read replica from the source DB instance. You create a read replica in a different AWS Region to improve your disaster recovery capabilities, scale read operations into an AWS Region closer to your users, and to make it easier to migrate from a data center in one AWS Region to a data center in another AWS Region.

 Note: This challenge task is optional and is provided in case you have lab time remaining. You can complete this task or skip to the end of the lab here.

  1. Switch back to the browser tab open to the AWS Management Console.

  2. At the top of the console, in the search bar, search for and choose .

  3. In the left navigation pane, choose Databases.

  4. Select  aurora DB instance as the source for a read replica.

  5. Choose Actions  and select Create cross-Region read replica.

The Create cross region read replica page is displayed.

For Multi-AZ deployment: Select  Don’t create an Aurora Replica.

The remaining settings in this section can be left at their default values.

  1. In the Connectivity section, configure the following:
  1. In the Settings section, configure the following:

The remaining settings in this section can be left at their default values.

  1. Choose Create.

A  Your Read Replica creation has been initiated. message is displayed on the screen.

  1. To review the cross-Region read replica in the destination region, choose the hyperlink on the same page labeled here.

  2. Otherwise, choose Close.

 Congratulations! You have successfully completed the optional task and started the creation of a cross-Region read replica for the Amazon RDS database.

Lab 3: Creating a Database Layer in Your Amazon VPC Infrastructure

Conclusion

 Congratulations! You have now successfully completed the following:

 In this lab, you learned how to deploy various resources needed for a prototype web application in your Amazon VPC. However, the architecture that was created in this lab does not meet AWS Cloud best practices because it is not an elastic, durable, highly available design. By relying on only a single Availability Zone in the architecture, there is a single point of failure. You learn how to configure your architecture for redundancy, failover, and high availability in the next lab