AWS
Beginner 13 min read AWS

The AWS Service Map

Find any service by how it fits the map

AWS is a huge family of services. Learning the map — compute, storage, network, database, security, analytics — tells you where any service fits and what it's for.

AWSEC2S3VPCIAMservice catalogcloud platform
Prerequisites: What is Cloud Computing?
Before we start

What you will learn

  • Group AWS services into the core functional families
  • Map a typical app to concrete AWS services
  • Navigate documentation and pricing pages without drowning
In 60 seconds

AWS organizes around families: compute, storage, database, networking, security&identity, analytics, integration and management. Every new service is an answer to a question somewhere in one of those families.

Introduction

What is this?

Amazon Web Services is the largest public cloud with more than 200 services. The ones you'll meet first: EC2 and Lambda (compute), S3 and EBS (storage), RDS and DynamoDB (databases), VPC (network), IAM (security), Route 53 (DNS), CloudFront (CDN) and CloudWatch (observability). Roughly: EC2 is a VM, S3 is object storage, VPC is your private network, IAM is identities and access, Lambda is functions, RDS is managed relational databases.

Motivation

Why do you need it?

  • Reading an AWS architecture diagram without the map is reading a foreign alphabet.
  • Each family has a service that answers a specific workload question — knowing the family narrows the search.
  • Interviewers ask 'how would you build X' — the map gives you a syntax for the answer.
  • AWS evolves fast, but the map is stable; specific features change monthly.
Think about it

Mental model

Imagine

A hardware store arranged by department

Think of

The AWS service catalog

You don't wander for the right wrench; you know plumbing is aisle 4. AWS is arranged the same way — find the family, then the exact tool that fits the job.

Mechanics

How it works

  • Compute family: EC2 (servers), ECS/EKS (containers), Lambda (functions), plus Auto Scaling and machine images.
  • Storage family: S3 (objects), EBS (block volumes), EFS/FSx (file systems), Glacier (archive).
  • Database family: RDS/Aurora (relational), DynamoDB (NoSQL key-value), Redshift (warehouse), ElastiCache (cache).
  • Networking family: VPC (network), Route 53 (DNS), CloudFront (CDN), ELB (load balancing), Transit Gateway (connectivity).
  • Cross-cutting: IAM (access), CloudWatch (monitoring), CloudTrail (audit), KMS (encryption), SQS/SNS (integration).

The AWS families and their flagship services.

Compute
Storage
Database
Networking
Security
Real world

In production

  • A typical web app: EC2 or ECS in a VPC, RDS for the database, S3 for uploads, Route 53 for DNS, CloudFront in front, CloudWatch for monitoring, IAM for access.
  • A serverless pipeline: S3 events trigger Lambda handlers that write to DynamoDB, orchestrated with Step Functions.
  • A big-data stack: Kinesis streams events, S3 stores raw, Glue/EMR transforms, Redshift serves analytics.
Guidelines

Best practices

  • Learn the flagship of each family before exploring variants (EC2, S3, VPC, RDS, IAM, Lambda).
  • Use the AWS documentation service list and pricing pages as the map, not blogs.
  • Try the console for exploration but move to the CLI/API for anything repeatable.
  • Keep an eye on announcements — every re:Invent renames parts of your mental model.
Watch out

Common mistakes

  • Using EC2 for everything because it's the best-known service.
  • Confusing S3 (object storage) with EBS (block storage) when picking a storage model.
  • Ignoring IAM until after resources are public.
  • Assuming one region means you're 'in AWS' — region choice matters for latency and residency.
Root cause analysis

Common issues

Error
Can't reach an EC2 instance over SSH
Root cause

Security group or NACL blocking, or no key pair configured

Fix

Check the instance's security group inbound rule and that your key pair matches the instance.

Error
Lambda times out on every call
Root cause

Function placed in a VPC with no NAT egress, or timeout too low

Fix

Attach a NAT gateway/endpoint or place Lambdas outside the VPC; raise timeouts deliberately.

Error
S3 object is 'not found' but exists
Root cause

Bucket policy denies the requester, or a lifecycle rule expired it

Fix

Test with the right identity; check versions, object ACL and lifecycle events in CloudTrail.

When things break

Debugging tips

  • Start diagnosis at the family: if storage, check bucket policy + permissions first.
  • CloudWatch metrics and CloudTrail event history belong in every 'what changed' hunt.
  • For integration errors, check SQS/SNS dead-letter queues before the consumer code.
  • Read the exact service error code — AccessDenied, Throttling and Timeout have different causes.
Interviews

Interview checkpoint

Test yourself

Quick quiz

0/2
1

Which AWS service is the managed object storage service?

2

EC2 instances automatically run on a public network with no VPC.

Go deeper

Official documentation

AWS — Overview of Amazon Web Services
docs
AWS — Full services list
docs