Tarek Ismail

In this lab, I had the opportunity to dive into AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and implement role-specific access controls for a café application. This hands-on experience emphasized the importance of adhering to the 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞 while enabling seamless collaboration across teams.

✅ 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬

• Created separate IAM groups for developers and database administrators and attached the needed policies for secure, collaborative development.
• Diagnosed and resolved a database connectivity issue.
• Used the IAM Visual Editor to create custom policies, granting precise permissions tailored to the roles' requirements.
• Leveraged the IAM Policy Simulator to test assigned policies, reducing unnecessary access and ensuring tighter security.
• Ensured secure access between AWS services by validating EC2 roles and permissions for API calls.

IAM is a cornerstone of cloud security, and this project showcased the value of testing, iterative refinement, and leveraging AWS tools to create robust, secure architectures.

In this challenge lab, I designed a scalable and resilient architecture for a café web application that anticipated high traffic due to being featured on a popular TV food show!

✅ Key Achievements:

• Enhanced high availability by deploying resources across multiple Availability Zones.
• Configured NAT Gateways in two AZs for uninterrupted internet access.
• Set up a bastion host for secure access to private instances using SSH passthrough.
• Designed a launch template to automate instance deployment with the pre-configured AMI.
• Created an Auto Scaling group with dynamic scaling policies for seamless traffic handling.
• Integrated an Application Load Balancer to route and balance traffic efficiently.
• Stress-tested scaling capabilities, validating automatic instance launches under high CPU utilization.

The result? A responsive and highly available 3-tier architecture ready to handle traffic spikes effortlessly. 📈