Learn AWS architecture through play.

Choose the experience you need

Canvas labs let you upload a page, test a function, and restart an instance. API labs guide you through service actions, settings, and state checks. Every experience works without an AWS account. Your actions become AWS API requests sent to an isolated AWS Emulator. Inspect the actual request and response in API receipts. Each lab explains which data operations, configuration settings, or runtime actions it tests, including emulator limitations.

Start with First contact, continue to the website and compute labs, then follow the service guides below. These introductory exercises complement the official AWS documentation linked in each guide.

Start here

Learn the three basic building blocks by using a real local emulator. Begin with a page, a function, and a server.

• Hands-on lab · 8–12 min

  First contact

  Upload a small web page, send its file details to a function, then fix a test that is missing the file name.

  S3 · Lambda

• Hands-on lab · 6–8 min

  Hello, world wide web

  Choose a page design, add your own title, save the file in S3, and open a preview of your work.

  S3

• Hands-on lab · 5–7 min

  You have the power

  Launch an EC2 server, stop it, and start that same server again. Check its ID to see what stayed the same.

  EC2

Storage & data

Choose a home for files and records. Learn to share data, keep older copies, and avoid losing useful work.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give files an undo button

  Enable version history and verify the setting stored on your bucket.

  S3 Versioning

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give old files a cleanup plan

  Save an expiration rule and inspect when it will apply.

  S3 Lifecycle

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep a second copy in another place

  Configure a second bucket as a replication destination and inspect the rule.

  S3 · Replication rules

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Lend a file, not the whole bucket

  Upload a private practice file and download it through a temporary signed request.

  S3 · Presigned URLs

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Finish a file uploaded in pieces

  Create a multipart upload, send a part, finish it, and read the resulting file.

  S3 · Multipart uploads

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Protect a saved file version

  Save an object version with governance retention and inspect its protection.

  S3 · Object Lock

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Find one player’s score

  Save a player’s score and retrieve it by the player’s lasting ID.

  DynamoDB

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Find orders a second way

  Create a second lookup path and query an order by customer.

  DynamoDB · Secondary indexes

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Let old practice records retire

  Choose an expiry field and inspect the table’s automatic cleanup setting.

  DynamoDB TTL

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Move two records together

  Move practice coins between two players using one transaction.

  DynamoDB · Transactions

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep a shop’s data together

  Create a database instance record and set its backup retention period.

  RDS

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give database readers their own lane

  Create an Aurora cluster configuration and inspect its reader and writer information.

  Aurora · Cluster settings

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give a server a lasting disk

  Create a disk volume, label its purpose, and inspect its stored settings.

  EBS · EC2

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Share one folder across apps

  Create a shared file-system record and inspect its lifecycle policy.

  EFS · EC2

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Remember answers you use often

  Create a Redis parameter group and configure how a full cache makes room.

  ElastiCache

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Help people find the right words

  Create a search-domain configuration and label the data it will serve.

  OpenSearch

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Ask questions of files in a bucket

  Create a query workgroup and set a per-query data-scan limit.

  Athena · S3

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Describe a data file so tools can read it

  Create a catalog database and a table describing two fields in a data file.

  AWS Glue · Data Catalog

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give database connections a shared entrance

  Create a database proxy configuration and change its idle connection timeout.

  RDS Proxy

Compute & AI

Run apps, add workers when demand grows, and design an AI helper with clear limits.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep a busy function from flooding a database

  Set and inspect a ceiling on overlapping function runs.

  Lambda · Concurrency

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give a function enough time, with a limit

  Change a function’s time limit and read the saved limit back.

  Lambda · Timeouts

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Share a toolkit between functions

  Publish a shared helper layer and attach its exact version to a function.

  Lambda · Layer versions

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Send the function only matching work

  Save a queue event filter and inspect which message kind it matches.

  Lambda · Event filtering

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Run your app in containers

  Create a container service configuration and change its desired task count.

  ECS · Fargate

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Set bounds for a growing container service

  Register an ECS scaling target and save its maximum task capacity.

  ECS · Application Auto Scaling

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Grow when the crowd arrives

  Create an instance group configuration and change its desired capacity.

  EC2 Auto Scaling

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Request and cancel Spot capacity

  Request Spot capacity, cancel the request, and inspect its state.

  EC2 · Spot

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Configure a private Kubernetes endpoint

  Create a Kubernetes cluster configuration with a private API endpoint.

  EKS · Kubernetes

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Build a careful AI helper

  Create an AI guardrail configuration and customize its blocked-input message.

  Bedrock · Guardrail configuration

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Help an AI answer from your own documents

  Configure a knowledge base and connect a practice document bucket.

  Bedrock Knowledge Bases · S3 · OpenSearch Serverless

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Prepare a model’s prediction endpoint

  Create a model record and configure the resources for its prediction endpoint.

  SageMaker AI

Networking

Help requests find the right app. Build private paths, share traffic, and deliver files closer to visitors.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Build a private neighborhood

  Build a private network and turn on its DNS hostname setting.

  VPC · Security groups

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give your app a front door

  Create an API front door and give its GET method a mock integration.

  API Gateway · Lambda

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Bring a website closer

  Describe a website distribution and inspect where it gets its files.

  CloudFront · S3

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Share the crowd across servers

  Create a load balancer listener and point it at a target group.

  Elastic Load Balancing · EC2

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Teach a load balancer what healthy means

  Choose how often a target group checks an app and read the setting back.

  Application Load Balancer · Health checks

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give your website a memorable name

  Create a DNS address record and choose how long answers may be cached.

  Route 53

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Reach a service through a private doorway

  Add an S3 gateway endpoint to a private network configuration.

  VPC · S3 gateway endpoints

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Request a link between private networks

  Create a peering request between two separate private networks.

  VPC · VPC peering

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give a website a backup address

  Save primary and backup DNS records with a health-check reference.

  Route 53 · DNS failover

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Share cached pages without mixing visitors

  Create a cache policy, change its lifetime, and verify the new version.

  CloudFront · Cache policies

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Handle a rush without hammering your API

  Set and inspect a burst limit on an HTTP API stage.

  API Gateway · Throttling

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give several networks a central meeting point

  Attach a VPC to a central transit gateway configuration.

  Transit Gateway

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Prepare the gateways for a VPN

  Prepare a VPN customer gateway and attach the AWS-side gateway to a VPC.

  Site-to-Site VPN

Security

Check identities, limit access, protect secrets, and secure connections. Each permission should have a clear purpose.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep a bucket private while sharing a website

  Save and inspect all four public-access safeguards on a bucket.

  S3 · Block Public Access · CloudFront

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give just enough permission

  Give a practice role one narrow permission and inspect its policy.

  IAM · S3

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Require MFA in a practice policy

  Save an IAM policy that requires MFA context for a sensitive action.

  IAM · MFA policy conditions

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Set up an Identity Center instance

  Create an Identity Center account instance and give it a recognizable name.

  IAM Identity Center

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Put a secure connection on your site

  Request a practice TLS certificate and label its purpose.

  Certificate Manager · HTTPS

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Track certificate renewal readiness

  Inspect certificate readiness and record who should track its renewal.

  ACM · Certificate renewal

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Design a sign-in door

  Create a user-pool configuration and set its minimum password length.

  Cognito

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep app secrets out of code

  Create a practice secret, replace its value, and retrieve the latest version.

  Secrets Manager

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Choose who can unlock your data

  Encrypt a practice message with a key and decrypt the resulting bytes.

  KMS · S3

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Filter suspicious web requests carefully

  Create a web firewall rule in count mode before considering blocking.

  AWS WAF

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Turn a threat alert into a careful investigation

  Generate a sample security finding and retrieve its investigation details.

  GuardDuty

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Find the most useful security fix to make next

  Import a harmless training finding and find it in a security findings list.

  Security Hub CSPM

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Inspect who may access a resource

  Create an account access analyzer and label its purpose.

  IAM Access Analyzer

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Prepare an organization policy boundary

  Create an organizational unit and inspect the emulator’s policy limitation.

  Organizations · Policy API limits

Events

Let apps react to new work. Use queues, announcements, matching rules, and safe retries.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give a failed function another chance

  Configure asynchronous retry limits and inspect the stored policy.

  Lambda · Retries

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give busy work a waiting line

  Send a job to a queue, receive it, and acknowledge that it was handled.

  SQS

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Send one update to two teams

  Publish one update and retrieve a copy from each of two subscribed queues.

  SNS · SQS

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Send the right event to the right place

  Create an event-matching rule and give it a queue destination.

  EventBridge · Lambda

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  React when a record changes

  Write a table record and read its change from DynamoDB Streams.

  DynamoDB Streams · Lambda

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give failed jobs a place to wait for help

  Give a queue a dead-letter destination and set a receive limit.

  SQS · Dead-letter queues

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep each customer’s updates in order

  Send two updates in one message group and read their order.

  SQS · FIFO queues

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Run a job at the right time

  Save a recurring queue schedule without turning on automatic delivery.

  EventBridge Scheduler

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Follow a stream of live events

  Write a live-event record and read its bytes from a stream shard.

  Kinesis Data Streams

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give each subscriber the messages it needs

  Give an SNS subscription a filter for one kind of message.

  SNS · Subscription filters

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Connect a queue to a workflow

  Configure a stopped pipe between a source queue and a destination queue.

  EventBridge Pipes · SQS · Step Functions

Operations

Watch for trouble, follow a job through its steps, investigate changes, and practice recovery.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Find out why an app is slow

  Publish a practice metric and save an alarm threshold for it.

  CloudWatch

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Build an order checklist

  Run a small workflow and inspect its completed output.

  Step Functions · Lambda

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Find who changed a setting

  Create an audit-trail configuration and turn on its logging state.

  CloudTrail

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give backups a retention plan

  Create a backup vault and save a plan with a clear retention period.

  AWS Backup

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Set safe admin-session preferences

  Create a Session Manager preferences document with an idle timeout.

  Systems Manager · Session preferences

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give app settings a tidy home

  Save an application setting, update it, and read the new version.

  Systems Manager · Parameter Store

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Find the useful clues in application logs

  Write an application log message and retrieve it from its stream.

  CloudWatch Logs

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Follow one request through several services

  Store a sample request trace and find its annotated segment.

  X-Ray · Distributed tracing

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Record the settings you want to watch

  Save an AWS Config rule for checking whether S3 versioning is enabled.

  AWS Config · Versioning rules

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Create a check that follows a visitor’s path

  Create a canary configuration and inspect how long it keeps successful results.

  CloudWatch Synthetics

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Write a patch approval baseline

  Create a patch approval baseline and inspect its saved rule.

  Systems Manager · Patch Manager

Build & deploy

Turn code into a checked release. Describe infrastructure, build containers, and move changes toward production with a way to recover.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Point a stable name at a tested function version

  Publish a function version, give it an alias, and invoke that alias.

  Lambda · Versions and aliases

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Build the same setup from a written plan

  Create a stack from a template, then update its bucket configuration.

  CloudFormation

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Deploy a CDK-generated plan

  Deploy a template generated by CDK and set its practice purpose parameter.

  AWS CDK · CloudFormation

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep container releases in a trusted registry

  Create an image repository and enable its basic scan-on-push setting.

  ECR · Container images

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Build and test an app the same way each time

  Create a build project and give it a bounded timeout.

  CodeBuild

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Give each release a clear path to production

  Create a two-stage release pipeline and pause its review-stage entry.

  CodePipeline · CodeBuild

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Set a gradual deployment policy

  Create a gradual Lambda deployment policy and inspect its first traffic share.

  CodeDeploy · Lambda deployment policies

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Compare the running setup with its template

  Request a stack drift check and inspect the detection result.

  CloudFormation · Drift detection

Costs & resilience

Understand spending and service limits. Plan for busy days, unavailable resources, and the decisions that keep an app useful.

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Notice spending before it becomes a surprise

  Create a monthly practice budget and change its spending threshold.

  AWS Budgets

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Group costs with a project rule

  Create a category that groups costs by a project tag and inspect its rule.

  Cost Explorer

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Label resources so the right person can find them

  Give a bucket and a server the same project label and read both tags.

  Resource tags

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Keep serving when one location has trouble

  Place two instance records in subnets from different Availability Zones.

  Regions · Availability Zones

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Handle a Health API access error

  Investigate a Health API access error and configure a separate application heartbeat alarm.

  AWS Health · CloudWatch

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Check the limits before a big launch

  Inspect an adjustable limit and submit a practice increase request.

  Service Quotas

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Inspect a spending commitment before buying

  Inspect an offering and create a local practice commitment record.

  Savings Plans

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Ask for evidence before changing a server size

  Enroll the emulator account and save an EC2 recommendation preference.

  Compute Optimizer

• Hands-on lab · 6–10 min

  Recover a file from a separate copy

  Keep a second copy, remove the original, and restore the file from that copy.

  S3 · File recovery