Week 3 Worklog

Week 3 Objectives:

  • Get practical experience with AWS storage services, including:
    • Amazon S3, Storage Gateway, AWS Backup, Amazon FSx.
  • Strengthen knowledge of AWS security and access management concepts through IAM (Users, Groups, Roles, Policies).
  • Gain hands-on experience operating services via both Console and CLI.
  • Record observations and structure notes to support upcoming exercises.

Tasks for This Week:

DayTasksStart dateCompletion dateReference Material
2- Investigate AWS storage options: S3, Snow Family devices, Storage Gateway, and AWS Backup; explore their roles in data protection and recovery22/09/202522/09/2025FCJ YT, Cloud Journey
3- Create and configure Amazon S3 buckets; set up AWS Backup plans and test backup/restore workflows23/09/202523/09/2025My Notes on AWS Services
4- Deploy a File Storage Gateway to enable hybrid access to cloud storage from on-premises systems24/09/202524/09/2025My Notes on AWS Services
5- Launch Amazon FSx for Windows File Server and verify file-sharing functionality and AD integration25/09/202525/09/2025My Notes on AWS Services
6- Study AWS IAM and security mechanisms; document users, roles, policies, and recommended best practices26/09/202526/09/2025Video Security

Week 3 Achievements:

Amazon S3

  • Object storage that scales virtually without limits; supports individual objects up to 5 TB.
  • Supports multipart uploads, notifications, and automated lifecycle management.
  • Guarantees 99.999999999% durability and 99.99% availability.
  • Offers multiple storage classes: Standard, Standard-IA, One Zone-IA, Intelligent-Tiering, Glacier, Deep Archive.
  • Lifecycle rules can move data automatically between tiers.
  • Can host static websites and supports CORS for cross-origin requests.
  • Access controlled via ACLs, bucket policies, and IAM policies; private access possible with VPC endpoints.
  • Versioning enables recovery from accidental deletion or overwrites.
  • Glacier provides cost-effective long-term storage with three retrieval speeds: Expedited, Standard, Bulk.

Snow Family & Storage Gateway

  • Snowball: ~80 TB appliance for transferring on-premises data to AWS.
  • Snowball Edge: ~100 TB storage plus compute capabilities at the edge for pre-processing data.
  • Snowmobile: truck-scale device (~100 PB) for extremely large datasets.
  • Storage Gateway: bridges on-premises systems with AWS storage:
    • File Gateway (NFS/SMB): presents S3 as file shares.
    • Volume Gateway (iSCSI): block-level storage with snapshots to EBS/S3.
    • Tape Gateway (VTL): virtual tape library storing to S3/Glacier, replacing physical tapes.

Backup & Disaster Recovery

  • RTO (Recovery Time Objective): maximum allowable downtime.
  • RPO (Recovery Point Objective): maximum acceptable data loss period.
  • Common recovery strategies: Backup & Restore, Pilot Light, Low-capacity Active-Active, Full Active-Active.
  • AWS Backup: centralized service to manage and monitor backups for EBS, EC2, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, and Storage Gateway.

FSx

  • Configured Amazon FSx for Windows File Server.
  • Provides managed Windows-native file storage accessible through SMB.
  • Ideal for workloads requiring Active Directory integration or Windows-based applications.

Security & IAM

  • Shared Responsibility Model: AWS secures infrastructure; customers secure their data and configurations.
  • Root Account: full permissions — best practice is to minimize use, create IAM admins, and secure credentials.
  • IAM User: identity with no default permissions, can be grouped for easier management.
  • IAM Policy: JSON-based permission rules; types include identity-based and resource-based; deny takes priority over allow.
  • IAM Role: temporary credentials via STS, combining permissions and a trust policy.
    • Useful for least-privilege access, cross-account access, and service-level permissions.