Cloud computing has transformed how we build and deploy software. It provides on-demand access to computing resources over the internet.
1What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.
2Step-by-Step Breakdown
Welcome to Cloud Foundations. In this module, we'll explore the fundamental concepts of cloud computing.
What are the three main service models in cloud computing?
- →IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
- →HTML, CSS, JS
Level Up 🚀
Advanced cheat sheets, SEO tricks, and interview prep for this topic.
Browser Support
Fully supported.
Fully supported.
Fully supported.
Fully supported.
Accessibility (A11y)
1Cloud Dashboards Must Remain Keyboard and Screen-Reader Navigable
The AWS Management Console itself is a complex web application — when building internal tools on top of cloud APIs, don't assume a technical audience means accessibility can be skipped; ensure custom dashboards still use semantic landmarks and labeled controls.
2Document Access Boundaries Clearly for Shared Cloud Accounts
When multiple team members share a cloud account, clear IAM policy naming and console tagging helps everyone, including those relying on screen readers to navigate long resource lists, understand what they can and cannot touch.
SEO Implications
- 1
Cloud Architecture Decisions Are Invisible to Crawlers, But Latency Isn't
Whether an app runs on a single EC2 instance or a globally distributed multi-region architecture has zero direct SEO weight — but the resulting page load latency, which cloud architecture directly controls, is a measured Core Web Vitals input.
- 2
Choose a Region Close to Your Primary Audience
Deploying compute and storage in a region geographically distant from most users adds real network latency to every request, which can measurably affect load-time metrics search engines factor into ranking.
Best Practices
Start With the AWS Free Tier Before Committing to Paid Resources
The Free Tier lets you experiment with EC2, S3, and other core services risk-free for a year — use it to validate an architecture before provisioning anything that incurs ongoing cost.
Tag Every Resource From Day One
Applying consistent tags (environment, owner, project) to cloud resources as they're created makes cost allocation and cleanup dramatically easier than retrofitting tags onto an untagged account months later.
Frequent Bugs
A cloud bill arrives far higher than expected after a short experiment.
An untracked resource (like an idle EC2 instance, an unattached EBS volume, or a NAT Gateway) was left running after testing. Set up AWS Budgets alerts and get in the habit of tearing down experimental resources immediately after use.
Confusion about which service model (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS) a given AWS service actually is.
Map the service against how much of the stack you manage versus AWS: EC2 (you manage the OS) is IaaS, Elastic Beanstalk (you manage only code) is PaaS, and a fully managed offering like Amazon Chime is SaaS.
Real-World Examples
Choosing a Starting Point on AWS
A team prototyping a new product starts within the AWS Free Tier, using EC2 t2.micro instances and S3 for storage, validating their architecture before any paid commitment.
// Free Tier eligible starting point
// EC2: t2.micro, 750 hrs/month
// S3: 5GB standard storage