Our program isn't a step by step "how-to". The modules generally don't say much on how to accomplish specific tasks; instead they walk you through goals in a sensible order, provide insight on unique challenges, and give pointers to the solutions. They aim to teach you how to learn AWS, constantly encouraging you to use Amazon's docs directly. Learning from the source of truth is always the best, and with AWS docs, it is certainly a skill unto itself. As the poet Basho once said, "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought."
At Stelligent, we set aside four weeks for new engineers to onboard and go through the core modules. While we pair new engineers up with a mentor who has gone through the course and is more knowledgeable and experienced with AWS, the majority of the material is completed by individuals. This course was designed to be complementary to other studies and coursework and to fill a niche we felt was not available elsewhere.
Digging deeper is strongly encouraged. If you want to explore StackSets in the Cloudformation module, cross account role assumptions in the IAM module, or use an API Gateway in conjunction with the Lambda module, please do explore that frontier. We built Stelligent U to focus on learning how to learn, and deeper, unguided exploration is one of the best ways to do so.
-
Click the "Use this template" button near the top of our repo page to create your repository:
-
For Owner on the page that comes up, be sure to choose your repo space rather than Stelligent's.
Each subdirectory is its own topic. They're numbered so that you can progress through them in a logical order. Later lessons will build on previous ones.
Within each topic's README, you will find a series of lessons and labs. As you go through them, save any code you write: scripts, templates, policy documents, etc. Add them to your copy of this repo. Answer questions inline using the Markdown quote prefix ("> ") to identify your own additions to the README files.
-
Use a Markdown previewer and linter so formatting your answers is easier.
-
cfn-lint is very handy for lessons that involve CloudFormation.
-
When creating AWS resources for these lessons be mindful of how they are named. If you're working within an AWS account that's shared with others, include your name or some other unique identifier to avoid colliding with others who may be working on the same module.
-
Stelligent's sandbox account is "cleaned" every weekend and most resources are automatically deleted. If you have a solution like aws-nuke, cloud-custodian, or DivvyCloud running in your account, it can be great for infrastructure-as-code and pipeline deployment discipline, but it can also be really frustrating if you're not ready for that. Just be sure you're aware of the automation running and account for it in your deployment workflow. Most importantly, keep everything in code and be sure to push it from your dev computer to your upstream repo often!
When you're ready to review a lesson with your mentor, create a branch, push
your changes to it, and create a pull request to the master branch of the
repository you created from the template.
(NOTE: please do not open a PR back to the stelligent/stelligent-u repo.)
