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Difficulty
Intermediate
Duration
10m
Students
1923
Ratings
4.4/5
Description

This course explores how to use automation when creating Amazon RDS databases.

It includes using AWS Secrets Manager for increasing the security of provisioned resources by limiting human intervention.

Learning Objectives

  • Deploy RDS database using CloudFormation
  • Understand the role that AWS Secrets Manager can play in managing database usernames and passwords
  • Understand the importance of automation and the benefits of using CloudFormation

Intended Audience

This course is intended for anyone that needs to learn to automate the deployment of Amazon RDS databases.

Prerequisites

To get the most out of this course, you should have a basic understanding of cloud computing using Amazon Web Services.

You should also know how to create relational databases using Amazon RDS.

Feedback

If you have any questions relating to this course, please contact us at support@cloudacademy.com.

Transcript

Automation is all about attempting to remove the human element from your workflows. Creating a system that provides oversight and security through previous testing, review, and the creation of standardized templates.

We worked our way through creating such a system that can deploy an RDS database using AWS Cloud Formation. 

In conjunction with AWS Secrets manager, this database is equipped with a secret password that is automatically rotated every 30 days.

Even if our cloud formation template were to be leaked to the internet, we have left no vector of attack available for someone to compromise. This is because we have removed the plain text password that was hardcoded into the cloud formation template, and replaced it with a dynamically created secret - which will be removed from local memory upon creation.

You can see how powerful this idea is when you apply it to creating a production-ready architecture.

Having to create all the little pieces by hand would take an incredible amount of time. However, being able to automatically build all this functionality with a CloudFormation template will save so much troubleshooting and heartache down the road.

Well, that brings us to the end of this course. My name is Will Meadows and I'd like to thank you for spending your time here learning how to automatically deploy an AWS database secured by Secretsmanger.  If you have any feedback, positive or negative, please contact us at support@cloudacademy.com, your feedback is greatly appreciated, thank you!

Lectures

Course Introduction - Why Automate? - Automating with AWS - Keeping Your Environment Secure with AWS Secrets Manager - Creating a Secret - Putting It All Together

About the Author

William Meadows is a passionately curious human currently living in the Bay Area in California. His career has included working with lasers, teaching teenagers how to code, and creating classes about cloud technology that are taught all over the world. His dedication to completing goals and helping others is what brings meaning to his life. In his free time, he enjoys reading Reddit, playing video games, and writing books.