What is the Cloud Resume Challenge?

In this blog post, I'll talk about the AWS Cloud Resume Challenge and my experience with it. I had just finished my Azure Cloud Resume Challenge and was eager to get started on the AWS version. Despite the fact that I had finished a portfolio website hosted on S3 with CloudFront, it was not a complete version of the Cloud Resume Challenge. The challenge didn't exist at the time, and my portfolio lacked some of the principles mentioned in it, such as a database aspect and Infrastructure as Code (IAC).

So I decided to make my own version of the Cloud Resume Challenge, complete with accompanying videos. The challenge's website is called Cloud Resume Challenge dot dev, and the AWS version is available there.

AWS Cloud Resume Challenge

These are the steps that are part of the challenge:

1. Certification
2. HTML
3. CSS
4. Static Website
5. HTTPS
6. DNS
7. Javascript
8. Database
9. API
10. Python
11. Tests
12. Infrastructure as Code
13. Source Control
14. CI/CD (Back end)
15. CI/CD (Front end)
16. Blog post

Certification

The first step in completing the challenge is to work towards a certification, which I already hold. Because I have four AWS Cloud certifications, I can skip this step.

HTML & CSS

The next step is to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create a static website for your resume. This website should be an HTML website rather than a Word document. Forest, the creator of the Cloud Resume Challenge, demonstrates how this website should look.

Back in 2018, I built a similar portfolio website, which can be found online by searching for "HTML5 portfolio free templates." HTML5 up.net is a recommended website for templates, where you can find a variety of templates that can be downloaded and customised to your liking. I used a template, changed the theme to purple, my favourite colour, and added my own personal information to the website.

To complete this step, you will need to familiarize yourself with HTML and CSS, as most of the code is already written for you. You simply need to edit the HTML files with your own information.

S3 and CloudFront

The next step is to create an S3 bucket with a static website and enable HTTPS using Cloudfront, an AWS CDN service. In a later video, I'll show you how to create the S3 bucket, upload your static website, configure HTTPS, and get a free domain or buy one from Namecheap.

What's Next?

The steps that follow include creating a DynamoDB database, writing Python Lambda functions, and using Terraform for Infrastructure as Code (IAC). I'll also be using GitHub for source control and setting up Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) for my website's frontend and backend.

Finally, I'm excited to share my experience with the AWS Cloud Resume Challenge and will be posting weekly updates on my progress. Subscribe to my channel to stay up to date, and join me in the next video as I begin building my website.