AWS Services — Complete Quick Reference Guide

DodaTech Updated 2026-06-06 4 min read

In this tutorial, you'll learn about AWS Services. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices to help you understand and apply this topic effectively.

Learning Path

flowchart LR
    A["Aws Overview"] --> B["Core Concepts"]
    B --> C["Intermediate Topics"]
    C --> D["Advanced Topics"]
    D --> E["Practical Applications"]
    A --> F["You Are Here"]
    style F fill:#f90,color:#fff

This AWS reference covers all core services, instance types, CLI commands, and best practices — designed as a quick lookup for daily cloud operations alongside detailed tutorials.

Core Services

Service	Purpose	Use Case
EC2	Virtual servers in the cloud	General-purpose compute, custom environments
S3	Object storage	File storage, static websites, backups, data lakes
Lambda	Serverless functions	Event-driven compute, API backends
DynamoDB	NoSQL database	Key-value and document data at scale
API Gateway	REST/WebSocket API management	Create, deploy, and manage APIs
CloudFront	Content Delivery Network (CDN)	Edge caching, low-latency content delivery
RDS	Managed relational databases	MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQL Server, Oracle
Route 53	DNS management	Domain registration, routing, health checks
IAM	Identity and Access Management	Users, groups, roles, policies, permissions

EC2 Instance Types

Family	Use Case	Examples
t3/t4g	General purpose (burstable, cost-effective)	t3.micro (free tier), t4g.small
m6i/m7i	General purpose (balanced)	m6i.large, m7i.xlarge
c6i/c7i	Compute optimized	c6i.large, c7i.2xlarge
r6i/r7i	Memory optimized	r6i.large, r7i.xlarge
p3/p4	GPU / Machine Learning	p3.2xlarge, p4d.24xlarge

S3 Storage Classes

Class	Durability	Accessibility	Cost
Standard	99.999999999%	Immediate	Highest
Intelligent-Tiering	99.999999999%	Automatic tiering	Medium
Standard-IA	99.999999999%	Immediate	Lower
Glacier	99.999999999%	Minutes to hours	Lowest
Deep Archive	99.999999999%	12+ hours	Absolute lowest

Common CLI Commands

S3

# List buckets
aws s3 ls

# Copy file to bucket
aws s3 cp file.txt s3://my-bucket/

# Sync directory (one-way sync)
aws s3 sync ./dist s3://my-bucket/ --delete

# List objects
aws s3 ls s3://my-bucket/

# Presigned URL (temporary access)
aws s3 presign s3://my-bucket/file.txt --expires-in 3600

Lambda

# Invoke function
aws lambda invoke --function-name my-function response.json

# Update code
aws lambda update-function-code \
  --function-name my-function \
  --zip-file fileb://function.zip

# List functions
aws lambda list-functions

# Get function configuration
aws lambda get-function-configuration --function-name my-function

EC2

# List instances
aws ec2 describe-instances

# Start/stop instances
aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0
aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids i-1234567890abcdef0

# Create security group
aws ec2 create-security-group \
  --group-name web-sg \
  --description "Web server security group"

DynamoDB

# List tables
aws dynamodb list-tables

# Query table
aws dynamodb query \
  --table-name Users \
  --key-condition-expression "id = :id" \
  --expression-attribute-values '{":id":{"S":"user123"}}'

# Put item
aws dynamodb put-item \
  --table-name Users \
  --item '{"id":{"S":"user123"},"name":{"S":"Alice"}}'

IAM Policy Structure

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": "s3:GetObject",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::my-bucket/*]
    }
  ]
}

Principle of Least Privilege: Grant only the permissions a service or user needs — no more. Start with minimal access and add permissions as needed.

VPC Configuration (CIDR Ranges)

CIDR Block	Available IPs	Use Case
10.0.0.0/16	65,536	Large VPC (production environments)
10.0.0.0/24	256	Small VPC (dev/test)
172.31.0.0/16	65,536	Default VPC

Free Tier Highlights

Service	Free Tier Limit
EC2	750 hours/month of t2.micro (12 months)
S3	5GB storage, 20,000 GET requests
Lambda	1 million requests/month, 400,000 GB-seconds
DynamoDB	25GB storage, 25 read/write capacity units
CloudFront	1TB data transfer out/month (12 months)
RDS	750 hours of db.t2.micro (12 months)

💡 Tip

Set up AWS Budgets and Billing Alarms immediately after creating your account. Unexpected costs are the #1 complaint from new AWS users.

Common Mistakes

Assuming all features work identically — always check browser/version compatibility.
Skipping documentation — reference docs exist for a reason; consult them.
Not testing edge cases — your setup may differ from tutorials.
Overlooking security — always validate inputs and follow best practices.
Copy-pasting without understanding — type code yourself to build real knowledge.

What's Next

Dive deeper into AWS services:

Topic	Description
{{< ref "/devops/cloud/aws/lambda" >}}	Serverless Computing with AWS Lambda
{{< ref "/devops/cloud/cpanel" >}}	cPanel hosting management