Gaining engineering experience is associated with an infinite number of hours of practice and continuous training. Every beginner as DevOps or SysOps, gains experience by doing the labs. It is worth considering the idea of ​​using the open source versions or the so-called trial versions / trials provided by the creators of programs or applications.

Amazon Web Services has decided to meet the expectations of future cloud users and offers the possibility of using the AWS Free Tier. This is a 12-month “introductory period” during which new users can use the services available in the AWS console.

How to use the AWS Free Tier?

The solution is very simple – just create an account and register. The registration date is the moment when the user gets access to the resources offered by Amazon Web Services and then the countdown of 12 months of the free period begins

The registration panel at Amazon Web Services

An important information for a novice user is the requirement to connect an active credit card to the newly created account in AWS. This allows verification of user data, and – at a later time, settlement for the services used, if the person using the console decides to work in the future with AWS websites. Each service has a separate price list, which is available in the catalog here. However, you do not have to worry about them during the testing period.

What are the benefits ?

The first and undeniable fact in favor of AWS Free Tier is the ability to use a fully functional AWS console, without having to pay for the service.

Home page with services offered by AWS

The real hit is the services provided by AWS for free forever!

The provision of the service is grouped in the following categories:

• always for free e.g.:
  • Amazon Chime
  • Amazon CloudWatch
  • Amazon Glacier
  • Amazon Macie
• 12 months for free e.g.:
  • Amazon API Gateway
  • Amazon CloudFront
  • Amazon EC2
  • Amazon Elastic Block Storage
• trials – test versions:
  • Amazon GuardDuty
  • Amazon Inspector
  • Amazon Redshift
  • Amazon SageMaker
  • and AWS Device Farm

Using the intuitive panel, after clicking the button, a list of offered services will be displayed along with the amount of data, days, hours or units that can be used during the month for free.

Home page with details about Free Tier

In order not to exceed the limits, you can log in to the account activity page and check the current and past consumption, and generate a report. It is also possible to set an “alarm” which will notify us of the start of charging and thus the end of the free functionality of a given service. AWS added a widget to its panel, which allows you to freely control the limits of the services. It shows the actual and forecasted monthly consumption of limits. This is undoubtedly a great simplification that allows for a simple control of the resources we have to use.

An important aspect is also the form of the account that was created. A single user account is accounted for individually, while several accounts are linked on completely different terms. We then deal with AWS Organizations, which is a multi-account management service, where payments are consolidated, for all member accounts (more on this subject at this link).

Limits

AWS Free Tier does not have rigid limits imposed on the user. Using the offered AWS package allows you to start working with the cloud, which does not exclude the extension and use of solutions so far chosen by the client, but already in the paid offer.

How to start working with AWS?

When we decide to start working with the console, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with the package of 10-minute tutorials prepared by Amazon Web Services.

A panel with 10 minute tutorials from Amazon Web Services

Noteworthy are also bookmarks in which there are examples of AWS based solutions, which were additionally divided thematically. You can find solutions based on m.in. for the DevOps or BigData competence and many more.

A panel with 10 minute tutorials from Amazon Web Services

The services have been cataloged and each of them has a set of referring links, among others for tutorials or documentation describing the functionality of a given service.

Directory with services from Amazon Web Services

AWS also took care of preparing the SDK – software development kit – a set of tools for programmers used in creating applications in a given environment. Very often, the sets contain code snippets that are also a form of documentation for the programming person, with the categorization of tools and taking into account available languages ​​and platforms.

The SDK panel from Amazon Web Services

Thanks to the tool prepared in such a way, you can start your adventure with building new applications or creating environments. Amazon Web Services has prepared the necessary technological facilities in a comprehensive and reliable way. taking into account all the needs of a novice engineer. Care was also taken to adapt the search method of AWS services based on the tools used by the programmer.

In order to enter a new stage of programming and enter the higher level of initiation, all you have to do is register – so get to work!