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Hosting Simple Web Applications Using Amazon Lightsail

Enhance your skills in web applications development and learn to build and deploy optimised web apps using Amazon Lightsail.

Computer screen with white Amazon Lightsail logo
  • Duration

    2 weeks
  • Weekly study

    4 hours

Discover software solutions for web apps using AWS Lightsail

Amazon Lightsail is an AWS service that helps developers deploy, manage, and test small-scale web apps, ecommerce, personal websites, and more.

This two-week course will equip you with the tools to optimise and scale your web apps, using the Lightsail console.

Create and deploy a LAMP Stack instance

You’ll begin the course by setting up your AWS account and familiarising yourself with the basics of Lightfall and app hosting services on AWS.

Moving on, you’ll explore the components of the LAMP stack, learning how to create an instance, or virtual machine, in the cloud.

Guided step-by-step, you’ll discover how to deploy your instance in Lightsail, equipping you with flexible and efficient solutions to build high quality web apps.

Add functionality to your web applications

Lightsail features a range of services to improve the management of your web apps, as well as the user experience.

You’ll learn how to expand your storage options, using managed databases and buckets. You’ll gain an overview of storage plans and pricing, allowing you to budget according to the scale of your project.

Learn to optimise and scale your Lightsail app

Using the tools available within Lightsail, you’ll gain the skills to make your apps more scalable, secure, and highly available.

You’ll be guided through the process of setting up a content delivery network, creating a DNS zone, and configuring app traffic to distribute evenly between servers.

With this skill set, you’ll be able to ensure your apps run smoothly and effectively, minimising the chance of an outage and reducing delays for users on a global scale.

By the end of this course, you’ll have an introductory knowledge of AWS Lightsail and its functionality within the building, deployment, and management of your web apps.

Syllabus

  • Week 1

    Deploy a Simple Application on Amazon Lightsail

    • Welcome to the Course

      Welcome to week 1 of Hosting Simple Web Applications Using Amazon Lightsail!

    • AWS Hosting Services

      In this section, you review the sample architecture for AWS hosting services, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), AWS Lambda, and Amazon Lightsail.

    • Get Started with Amazon Lightsail

      In this section, you set up your first account on AWS, launch a virtual server, deploy the application code, and assign a static IP address to your application.

    • Add Functionality to Your App

      In this section, you create a database and object storage to store your data and media files in the AWS Cloud. This way, you don’t need to reupload the source code each time you make changes to existing resources.

  • Week 2

    Optimize and Scale Your Application

    • Optimize Your App

      In this section, you focus on improving user experience by minimizing the loading time for your application and reducing the possibility of service outages.

    • Secure Traffic Between Your App and the Website

      In this section, you enable a secure network connection between the server and your users’ web browsers.

    • Scale Your App

      In this section, you continue to learn about different methods for scaling an application in Amazon Lightsail.

    • Course Closing

      In this section, you delete all of the resources that you created throughout the course to avoid incurring costs. Finally, you can review the course summary.

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Differentiate between several application-hosting services on AWS
  • Describe the capabilities of Amazon Lightsail
  • Set up an account on AWS
  • Create and deploy a LAMP-stack instance on Lightsail
  • Differentiate between dynamic and static IP addresses
  • Assign a static IP address to the application
  • Deploy a managed database on Lightsail
  • Run MySQL commands to create a database and seed database tables with pet data
  • Store images in object storage on Lightsail
  • Create a bucket metric alarm to receive notifications when the bucket is reaching its storage limit
  • Distribute media content to edge locations by using a content delivery network (CDN)
  • Create a load balancer to evenly distribute network traffic to your application
  • Take a snapshot of a primary instance and attach it to a load balancer
  • Set up a Domain Name System (DNS) zone, along with the DNS records
  • Transfer management of your domain’s DNS records to Amazon Lightsail
  • Create the SSL/TLS certificate for a load balancer so that you can secure the network connection
  • Differentiate between vertical scaling and horizontal scaling
  • Determine what to do if you want to expand beyond the capabilities of Lightsail
  • Delete resources that you configured in Lightsail to avoid incurring costs

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for web developers who want to further their knowledge of hosting web applications with Amazon Lightsail.

Who will you learn with?

Oksana Hoeckele is a Cloud Technologist at AWS. Oksana taught at several higher education institutions, completed a coding bootcamp, participated in hackathons, and wrote technical documentation.

Who developed the course?

AWS Training and Certification

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—are using AWS to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster.

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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