AWS Notes¶
AWS study notes compressed to first principles — built from Re/Start, Apprenticeship (CSE), and real work at AWS.
No filler. No memorisation drills. Patterns, mental models, and the reasoning behind everything.
What's Here¶
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Fundamentals
Linux, networking, binary, cloud core concepts. Start here if you're new to any of this.
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Compute
EC2, Lambda, Fargate, and the Nitro hardware stack that underlies all of it.
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Networking
VPC, subnetting, DNS, Security Groups vs NACLs — how data actually moves in AWS.
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Storage
S3, EBS, EFS — including hands-on security labs covering snapshot forensics and SSRF attack chains.
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Security
IAM, AWS Organizations, SCPs, cryptography, and security tooling from scratch.
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Databases
RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB — when to use which and the trade-offs that matter.
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DevOps
Docker from first principles, Docker Compose, and CDK for infrastructure as code.
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Observability
APM, distributed tracing, X-Ray, CloudWatch — knowing what your systems are doing and why.
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Reference
AWS CLI, Linux commands, services cheatsheet — the things you'll look up constantly.
Start Here¶
Every note follows the same structure: summary → concepts → mental model → AWS context → quiz.
The goal is to understand the pattern behind each service well enough to reason about scenarios you've never seen before. That's what the SAA actually tests — not memorised facts.
Read How I Learn for the full method.
Highest-Signal Notes¶
| Note | What Makes It Worth Reading |
|---|---|
| EBS Security Labs | Four real hands-on labs — snapshot forensics, SSRF → IMDS attack chain, Capital One breach mechanics |
| IAM & AWS Organizations | SCP guardrails, org hierarchy, full permission evaluation order |
| APM & Monitoring | Traces, spans, X-Ray, Sentry — the full observability picture |
| AWS Nitro System | The hardware underneath EC2 — makes instance type choices make sense |
| Storage Fundamentals | Why backups fail (GitLab, Toy Story 2) and what actually protects data |
| Docker | Containers from first principles — Dockerfile, Compose, AWS equivalents |
| EC2 & Compute Services | Full compute landscape — when to use EC2 vs Fargate vs Lambda |
For SAA Prep
Use the quiz questions at the bottom of each note. If you can answer them without looking back, you understand the topic. If you can't, go back to the mental model section — not the key concepts list.