Understanding AWS automation

AWS offers a wide range of automation tools that you can use to achieve different things. Some of the tools specialize in working with application functionality, while some are used with containers. Containers are self-contained modules in which an application can be deployed, along with all the dependencies needed to run it, such as a Java runtime environment. Containers are not covered within the Database Specialty exam, but there is a link about this in the Further reading section if you'd like to know more.

First, let's look at a tool we have used previously in this book – the AWS command-line interface (AWS CLI).

AWS command-line interface (AWS CLI)

The AWS CLI is a command-line tool you can download from AWS. It runs on Windows, macOS, and most Linux distributions. Once downloaded, installed, and configured, the AWS CLI allows you to interact with AWS services using text-based commands. The CLI is very powerful and can be...