AWS Cloud Sandbox
Cloud infrastructure projects using AWS Educate and Skill Builder with Docker containerization.
Problem
Needed hands-on cloud infrastructure experience beyond local development. The goal was to build practical skills with AWS services, containerization, and infrastructure-as-code tooling that would translate to production cloud environments.
What I Built
A collection of cloud sandbox projects built through AWS Educate and AWS Skill Builder programs:
- Containerized applications using Docker and Docker Compose
- AWS service configurations and deployments
- Infrastructure experiments exploring compute, storage, and networking fundamentals
This is an active, ongoing body of work with planned expansion into Kubernetes orchestration, Terraform infrastructure-as-code, and CI/CD pipeline automation.
Stack
- Cloud: AWS (Educate / Skill Builder)
- Containerization: Docker, Docker Compose
- Planned: Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines
What I Learned
- Docker Compose is an effective bridge between local development and cloud deployment — the mental model of defining services declaratively transfers directly to Kubernetes manifests.
- AWS’s service catalog is vast; starting with core services (EC2, S3, IAM, VPC) before branching into managed services prevents overwhelm.
- The AWS Educate sandbox environment has limitations that force creative problem-solving around resource constraints.
Outcome
Growing portfolio of cloud infrastructure projects demonstrating containerization and AWS service familiarity, with a clear roadmap toward Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD automation.