Prerequisites & Preparation

System Requirements

1. AWS Account

• Active AWS account
• Administrator access or the following permissions:
  • CloudFormation: Full access
  • EC2: Full access
  • VPC: Full access
  • RDS: Full access
  • S3: Full access
  • CloudFront: Full access
  • IAM: Create roles and policies
  • CloudWatch: Full access

2. AWS CLI

Install and configure AWS CLI:

Windows:

# Download and install from: https://aws.amazon.com/cli/
# Or use chocolatey:
choco install awscli

# Verify installation
aws --version

Linux/Mac:

# Using pip
pip install awscli

# Or use package manager
# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install awscli

# MacOS
brew install awscli

# Verify installation
aws --version

Configure AWS CLI:

aws configure
# AWS Access Key ID: <your-access-key>
# AWS Secret Access Key: <your-secret-key>
# Default region name: ap-southeast-1
# Default output format: json

3. EC2 Key Pair

Create an EC2 Key Pair for SSH access:

Via AWS Console:

1. Open EC2 Console
2. Select region ap-southeast-1 (Singapore)
3. Go to Network & Security → Key Pairs
4. Click Create key pair
5. Name: workshop-aws-key
6. Key pair type: RSA
7. Private key file format: .pem (Linux/Mac) or .ppk (Windows/PuTTY)
8. Click Create key pair
9. Save the .pem file securely

Via AWS CLI:

# Create key pair
aws ec2 create-key-pair \
  --key-name workshop-aws-key \
  --query 'KeyMaterial' \
  --output text \
  --region ap-southeast-1 > workshop-aws-key.pem

# Set permissions (Linux/Mac only)
chmod 400 workshop-aws-key.pem

4. Development Tools

Java Development Kit (JDK) 17:

# Windows (chocolatey)
choco install openjdk17

# Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt-get install openjdk-17-jdk

# MacOS
brew install openjdk@17

# Verify
java -version

Maven:

# Windows
choco install maven

# Linux
sudo apt-get install maven

# MacOS
brew install maven

# Verify
mvn -version

Node.js and npm:

# Windows
choco install nodejs

# Linux
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

# MacOS
brew install node

# Verify
node --version
npm --version

Prepare Project Files

1. Clone or Download Project

# If you have Git repository
git clone <your-repo-url>
cd aws_project

# Or download and extract ZIP file

2. Project Structure

aws_project/
├── aws/
│   ├── infrastructure.yaml      # Main CloudFormation template
│   ├── cicd-pipeline.yaml       # CI/CD pipeline (optional)
│   ├── parameters.json          # Stack parameters
│   ├── deploy.bat              # Deploy script (Windows)
│   ├── deploy.sh               # Deploy script (Linux/Mac)
│   └── README.md               # Detailed instructions
├── BE/
│   └── workshop_BE/
│       ├── src/                # Backend source code
│       ├── pom.xml             # Maven configuration
│       └── README.md
└── FE/
    ├── src/                    # Frontend source code
    ├── package.json            # npm dependencies
    └── README.md

3. Configure Parameters

Open aws/parameters.json and update values:

[
  {
    "ParameterKey": "ProjectName",
    "ParameterValue": "workshop-aws"
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "Environment",
    "ParameterValue": "dev"
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "KeyPairName",
    "ParameterValue": "workshop-aws-key"  // ⚠️ Replace with your key pair name
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "DBPassword",
    "ParameterValue": "YourStrongPassword123!"  // ⚠️ Use a strong password
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "InstanceType",
    "ParameterValue": "t3.micro"
  },
  {
    "ParameterKey": "DBInstanceClass",
    "ParameterValue": "db.t3.micro"
  }
]

Important notes:

• KeyPairName: Must match your created key pair name
• DBPassword: Minimum 8 characters with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special characters
• Don’t commit this file with real passwords to Git

4. Update AMI ID

The CloudFormation template uses a default AMI ID. Update it for your region:

Find AMI ID:

# Find Amazon Linux 2023 AMI for ap-southeast-1
aws ec2 describe-images \
  --owners amazon \
  --filters "Name=name,Values=al2023-ami-*-x86_64" \
  --query 'Images | sort_by(@, &CreationDate) | [-1].[ImageId,Name,CreationDate]' \
  --region ap-southeast-1 \
  --output table

Update in infrastructure.yaml:

Find line ~530:

LaunchTemplate:
  Properties:
    LaunchTemplateData:
      ImageId: ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0  # ⚠️ Replace with your AMI ID

Preparation Checklist

Ensure you have completed all the following steps:

• AWS account configured
• AWS CLI installed and configured (aws configure)
• EC2 Key Pair created
• Java 17 installed
• Maven installed
• Node.js and npm installed
• Project files downloaded
• parameters.json file updated
• AMI ID updated in infrastructure.yaml

Validate AWS Credentials

# Check AWS credentials
aws sts get-caller-identity

# Expected output:
# {
#     "UserId": "AIDAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
#     "Account": "123456789012",
#     "Arn": "arn:aws:iam::123456789012:user/your-username"
# }

Validate CloudFormation Template

cd aws
aws cloudformation validate-template \
  --template-body file://infrastructure.yaml \
  --region ap-southeast-1

If successful, you’ll see output with template parameters and outputs information.

Cost Estimation

Before deployment, understand the costs:

For workshop (2-3 hours): ~$0.50-1.00

Note:

• Costs apply to ap-southeast-1 region
• Use AWS Free Tier if account is eligible
• NAT Gateway (~$32/month) can be disabled to save costs

Next Steps

After completing all preparation steps, you’re ready to:

➡️ Deploy Infrastructure with CloudFormation