Cloud Deployment Fundamentals

What will the course cover?

Part 1

In part 1 of this course, students will focus on the core DevOps practices required to manage the full application lifecycle on the cloud. You’ll work directly with essential AWS services, use Docker to create and manage containers, and implement CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions to automate the release process. You will finish the section by deploying a complete end-to-end application, giving you the practical experience to apply these concepts to other major public cloud platforms, like Azure or GCP, and contribute to production infrastructure with confidence.

• Cloud Infrastructure with AWS

  Provision and configure core AWS services, including EC2 for virtual servers and S3 for object storage. Learn how these services work together to form the backbone of a modern web application.

• Containerization with Docker

  Package your application and its dependencies into a portable Docker image by writing your own Dockerfile. You'll learn to build, run, and manage containers both locally and in the cloud.

• Automated CI/CD Pipelines

  Build, test, and deploy your application automatically using GitHub Actions. Create a complete workflow that pushes code changes from your repository directly to your AWS environment.

• Cloud-Based Databases

  Set up and manage a relational database in the cloud using Amazon RDS. Learn how to securely connect your deployed application to a managed database instance.

Part 2

In part 2 of this course, students take a major step toward thinking like real-world cloud engineers by learning how to define and manage infrastructure using Terraform. Instead of manually configuring services, students will build and deploy a full AWS architecture using Infrastructure as Code, gaining a deeper understanding of how modern cloud systems are designed, secured, and scaled. We’ll also introduce key concepts like serverless services and event-driven architecture, laying the foundation for transitioning into fully cloud-native systems in the next phase of the course.

• Terraform Fundamentals

  Learn how to define, plan, and deploy cloud infrastructure using Terraform, including providers, resources, variables, outputs, and state.

• Infrastructure as Code

  Rebuild a complete AWS architecture (EC2, S3, CloudFront, RDS) entirely in Terraform and integrate it into a CI/CD pipeline.

• Cloud Networking & Security

  Understand how VPCs, subnets, and Security Groups control traffic flow — and why misconfigurations are the number 1 cause of broken deployments.

• IAM & Permissions

  Learn how roles and policies control access between services, and how to debug common “access denied” issues.

• Scalability & Load Balancing

  Explore how applications scale using load balancers and multiple instances, and how Terraform manages these relationships.

• Intro to Serverless & Event-Driven Design

  Get hands-on with Lambda and learn how modern systems respond to events, setting the stage for building fully cloud-native architectures in the next workshop.

Part 3

In part 3 of this course, students move beyond foundational infrastructure and begin working with cloud systems the way modern engineering teams do in production. They will evolve their application into a scalable, cloud-native architecture by migrating to ECS and developing a brand new feature powered by a serverless, event-driven microservice using AWS Lambda and S3. All infrastructure and deployments are managed through Terraform within fully integrated CI/CD pipelines, using remote state and automated workflows. As complexity increases, students will learn to think in systems — tracing behavior across services, debugging with observability tools, and making real architectural decisions to improve reliability, scalability, and design.

• Containerized Workloads with ECS

  Deploy and manage your API using ECS and Fargate, and understand how modern systems handle scaling and orchestration without managing servers directly.

• Designing Event-Driven Systems

  Introduce a Lambda microservice triggered by S3 events, and learn how asynchronous workflows enable more flexible, decoupled architectures.

• Production-Style Terraform Workflows

  Manage infrastructure across multiple repositories with remote state (S3 + DynamoDB) and deploy changes through automated CI/CD pipelines.

• End-to-End System Integration

  Work across a distributed architecture spanning frontend, API, database, and event-driven services — and understand how data flows between them.

• Observability in Practice

  Use CloudWatch logs to monitor behavior, investigate failures, and validate system functionality across multiple services.

• Systems Thinking for Debugging

  Diagnose incomplete or broken features by tracing requests through the system, identifying gaps, and reasoning about how services interact.

How will you learn the material?

• Schedule

  Mondays & Wednesdays (Plus 1-2 classes on a Fridays.) 1PM - 3PM CT
• Location

  This class is live online (i.e. synchronous).
  
• Dates

  April 20 - July 15, 2026 (Note: there will be a break between Part 2 & 3 from June 8 - June 19)

• Tuition

  FREE

  This course is a part of ProTech. Please review eligibility requirements below before applying.

What is required?

• Personal Laptop
• Must be 18+ years old
• Must understand the basic syntax of JavaScript and Python
• Must be familiar with basic Git and Bash commands
• Familiarity with testing API endpoints is helpful, but not required

ProTech Eligibility

• Must reside in Middle Tennessee
• Graduate of NSS, another coding bootcamp, or college/university with tech-related degree AND searching for your first job in tech.
• Tech professional who is unemployed after being laid off from a tech job