v2.3 — refreshed for 2026

Master AWS without the certification trap

400+ pages of production-grade AWS. Real-world patterns, battle-tested architectures, and an infographic for every one of the 16 core services.

Read by engineers at AWS, BMW, SAP, Toyota & more.
30-day money-back guarantee · No DRM · PDF + EPUB

AWS Fundamentals book cover

Trusted by 2,933 engineers & managers at

BMWAWSCapgeminiToyotaKPMGNTTO2River IslandSAP

It is intended to focus on AWS usage in the real world, and goes deeper than simply providing the information needed to obtain certifications. The per-service infographics also look amazing!

Jeff Barr — Vice President, Amazon Web Services

01 — What's inside

AWS is well documented. Knowing what to actually use isn't.

Building on AWS means stitching together a lot of services and repeating the same best practices over and over. This book is those best practices — the config options that matter, and nothing more.

400+

Pages that earn their place

No filler chapters. The config options you need, and not more.

16

Core services, deeply

Compute, storage, networking, databases — from EC2 to serverless.

17

Service infographics

Every service as one visual you can pin above your desk.

6

IaC tools introduced

CloudFormation, CDK, SST, Serverless, Pulumi and Terraform.

02 — Table of contents

Every core service, in order.

01

Introduction

Scope, who this book is for — and who it isn’t.

02

Getting started

Account setup, security basics, avoiding cost surprises.

03

IAM

Users, roles, policies and least privilege that survives contact with reality.

04

Compute

EC2, ECS and Lambda — when each one is the right answer.

05

Storage

S3, EBS and EFS, with the durability and lifecycle settings that matter.

06

Databases

DynamoDB and RDS — modelling, capacity and cost.

03 — Infographics

Learn AWS the visual way.

One detailed infographic per core service — the whole mental model on a single page. Included in the Book + Infographics package, unbranded and print-ready.

16 infographics in total. Previews shown — full high-resolution versions ship with the book.

04 — Pricing

Pick your package

One-time payment. 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.

The E-Book

The complete book: AWS Fundamentals — AWS for the real world.

$39.99one-time
Get the book
400+ pages of AWS fundamentals
The 16 core building blocks of AWS
Modern IaC intro (CF, CDK, Serverless)
Visualizations throughout
Discord community access
Best value

Book + Infographics

The book plus the full unbranded infographic set for every core service.

$59.99one-time
Get the bundle
Everything in the E-Book
17 infographics, one per service
Unbranded and high resolution
Print-ready for your office wall
Discord community access

Infographics only

Just the visuals — the core AWS building blocks at a glance.

$39.99one-time
Get the infographics
17 infographics on core AWS services
Unbranded, error- and typo-free
High quality, ready to print
Lifetime access to updates

Student, team (5+) or PPP discount? Hit us up.

No credit card required

Not ready? Take a chapter.

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Some kind words from the community

I’m excited about this one — we get a lot of web dev and JS around here, and we’re missing more cloud, infrastructure and engineering fundamentals. I think this will be great!

Simon HøibergFounder, FeedHive

Two of my favorite AWS content creators. This is going to be absolute fire. Subscribe now!

Alex KatesSenior Fullstack Developer

This is awesome, Tobias!

Alex DeBrieAuthor of The DynamoDB Book

This is amazing and I’d love to translate it.

Leandro DamascenaSolutions Architect, AWS

Amazing!

Andrew BrownCloud creator (OG)

A very useful thread for anyone who is ready to learn more about AWS.

Jeff BarrVP, Amazon Web Services

Tobias Schmidt and Sandro Volpicella

05 — Your instructors

20+ years of combined production AWS experience.

We've built, broken and debugged production systems on AWS for startups and enterprises alike — so you can learn from our mistakes instead of your own.

Tobias Schmidt

Cloud Engineer & Educator

10+ years AWS. Migrated production workloads for startups and large enterprises — and fell into every trap so you don't have to.

Sandro Volpicella

Fullstack Developer & AWS Specialist

AWS Community Builder, conference speaker and author of two AWS books. Builds serverless-first, cost-effective architectures.

Frequently asked questions

Still stuck? Write us at hello@awsfundamentals.com.

An extensive getting-started guide, the core building blocks of AWS service by service, and a practical introduction to Infrastructure as Code on AWS.

Stop reading docs. Start shipping architecture.

400+ pages, 16 services, every infographic. One-time payment, 30-day guarantee.

Get the book — starting at $39