Creating an AWS Account from Scratch

Photo by Antonio Scalogna on Unsplash*

If you're starting a cloud journey, or just want to understand what all the fuss is about, AWS is a reasonable place to start: it's held the top spot in cloud market share for over a decade and is still one of the fastest-growing cloud businesses out there.

What "the cloud" actually is

Think of it like electricity. You don't build your own power plant to run a house. You pay for what you use, when you use it. Cloud computing works the same way with compute, storage, and everything else that used to mean buying and racking your own hardware.

The old way meant weeks of planning hardware specs, ordering equipment, building in redundancy, and configuring all of it before you'd served a single request. AWS has already built globally distributed datacenters with high availability baked in. You can deploy something in minutes and pay only for what you actually consume.

That's a real edge for startups, and increasingly the reason larger companies migrate too: lower cost, and a much simpler way to manage applications, data, and permissions.

What you can actually do with it

Databases, virtual servers, file systems, and 200+ other services covering everything from raw compute to machine learning. Some of the most common starting points:

• Hosting a website or server
• Building a full CI/CD pipeline
• Serverless functions with Lambda
• Cheap, durable file storage
• Email, SMS, and queueing services
• Fully managed versions of almost everything above

Setting up the account

1. Go to the AWS sign-up page
2. Enter your email and choose a password
3. Continue to the next step
4. Fill in your personal details
5. Accept the terms and continue
6. Add billing information (free tier usage won't be charged)
7. Click Verify and Continue
8. Verify your identity with a phone number
9. Click Continue
10. Choose Basic Support if this is for personal projects
11. Finish the sign-up flow
12. Head to the AWS Management Console
13. Sign in as the Root User
14. Enter the email you signed up with
15. Complete the security check
16. Enter your password

Photo by Dallas Reedy on Unsplash*

Where to go next

Once you're in, the best next step is just to start building something small: AWS's own tutorials are a good starting point, and a few reasonable first projects are a personal website, an automated SMS sender, or getting an IoT device talking to AWS.

Practical guide: setting up your own AWS account

A condensed version of everything above, in the order you'd actually do it.

1. Understand what you're paying for. Cloud computing works like electricity: you pay for what you use, when you use it, instead of buying and racking your own hardware.
2. Go to the AWS sign-up page and create your account. Enter your email, choose a password, fill in your personal details, and accept the terms to continue.
3. Add billing information. Free tier usage won't be charged, but AWS still requires a card on file before you can continue.
4. Verify your identity with a phone number, then click Verify and Continue.
5. Choose Basic Support if this is for personal projects, then finish the sign-up flow.
6. Sign in to the AWS Management Console as the Root User, using the email you signed up with, your password, and the security check.
7. Start building something small. AWS's own tutorials are a good starting point; a personal website, an automated SMS sender, or an IoT device talking to AWS are all reasonable first projects.