How to interact with AWS?
When infrastructure becomes virtual, as with cloud computing, the way developers work with infrastructure changes slightly. Instead of physically managing infrastructure, you logically manage it, through the AWS Application Programming Interface (AWS API). When you create, delete, or change any AWS resource, you will use API calls to AWS to do that.
You can make these API calls in several ways, but we will focus on these to introduce this topic:
- The AWS Management Console
- The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI)
- IDE and IDE toolkits
- AWS Software Development Kits (SDKs)
The AWS Management Console
When first getting started with AWS, people often begin with the AWS Management Console, a web-based console that you log in to through a browser. The console comprises a broad collection of service consoles for managing AWS resources. By working in the console, you do not need to worry about scripting or syntax. You can also select the specific Region you want an AWS service to be in.
AWS CLI
The AWS CLI is an open source tool that enables you to create and configure AWS services using commands in your command-line shell. You can run commands in Linux or macOS using common shell programs such as bash, zsh, and tcsh, or on Windows, at the Windows command prompt or in PowerShell. One option for getting up and running quickly with the AWS CLI is AWS CloudShell, a browser-based shell that provides command-line access to AWS resources. CloudShell is pre-authenticated with your console credentials. Common development and operations tools are pre-installed, so no local installation or configuration is required.
IDE and IDE Toolkits
AWS offers support for popular Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) and IDE toolkits so you can author, debug, and deploy your code on AWS from within your preferred environment. Supported IDEs and toolkits include AWS Cloud9, IntelliJ, PyCharm, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, Rider, and WebStorm.
DKs
Software Development Kits (SDKs) are tools that allow you to interact with the AWS API programmatically. AWS creates and maintains SDKs for most popular programming languages, including those shown in the following diagram.
