AWS + OpenTofu Level 200: Build a Reusable AWS Application Platform
Level 200 — Intermediate Cloud Architecture & Reusable IaC Platforms
A practical, hands-on curriculum bridging basic IaC to production-grade application platforms. Master modular engineering, remote state locking, multi-tier VPCs, private workloads, ECS Fargate, RDS PostgreSQL, and GitOps CI/CD.
Learning Path Curriculum
5 Core Modules • 24 Detailed GuidesOpenTofu Project Engineering
Transition from single-file scripts to professional, maintainable, and composable OpenTofu modules.
From Lab Configuration to Infrastructure Project
Structure production-grade OpenTofu projects, configure version constraints, enforce common tagging, and avoid monolithic main.tf files.
Your First Reusable OpenTofu Module
Design and build an encapsulated, reusable VPC child module with clear inputs, outputs, and local sources.
Compose Infrastructure Modules
Chain child modules together, pass outputs between networking, security, and compute layers, and master dependency management.
for_each, count, and Dynamic Infrastructure
Avoid list index shift pitfalls with for_each maps, dynamic blocks, and predictable resource address keys.
Resource Lifecycle and Safe Changes
Master create_before_destroy, prevent_destroy, ignore_changes, and analyze plan diffs to prevent accidental downtime.
State and Environment Management
Govern remote state safely, implement distributed locking, isolate environments, and recover from disasters.
Remote State with S3
Bootstrap dedicated S3 state storage with mandatory encryption, versioning, public access blocks, and state migration workflows.
State Locking and Concurrent Changes
Prevent split-brain state corruption with distributed locking, understand lock contention, and safely resolve stale locks.
Environment Separation: Development and Staging
Isolate dev and staging environments with directory-based structure, dedicated remote state keys, and environment variables.
Import, Refactoring, and Resource Identity
Refactor root resources into child modules with zero downtime using moved blocks and declarative import blocks.
State Recovery and Disaster Scenarios
Simulate state corruption, roll back S3 state versions, re-import orphaned cloud resources, and establish disaster recovery runbooks.
Application Networking
Design multi-tier VPC topologies, manage private egress, configure load balancers, and terminate TLS.
Design a Multi-Subnet VPC
Architect a 6-subnet multi-AZ VPC (Public, Private App, Private DB), configure NAT Gateways, and optimize egress routing.
Run a Private EC2 Application Tier
Deploy compute in private subnets with zero public IPs, administer via SSM Session Manager, and manage outbound package updates.
VPC Endpoints and Private AWS Access
Eliminate NAT Gateway data transfer costs for S3 with Gateway Endpoints and explore Interface Endpoints (PrivateLink).
Application Load Balancer
Deploy public ALBs, configure health checks, route traffic to private backends, and debug 502/503 gateway errors.
HTTPS with ACM and Route 53
Provision ACM TLS certificates with DNS validation, configure ALB HTTPS listeners, and enforce HTTP-to-HTTPS redirects.
Application Platform
Scale compute elastically, build container pipelines with ECR, deploy serverless ECS Fargate, and manage private RDS.
EC2 Auto Scaling
Configure Launch Templates, multi-AZ Auto Scaling Groups, ALB target tracking, and automated instance replacement.
Containerize the Application
Build production Docker container images, provision Amazon ECR repositories with OpenTofu, and push images via CLI.
ECS Fargate Fundamentals
Deploy serverless container workloads with ECS clusters, task definitions, task execution roles, and ALB integration.
Private RDS PostgreSQL
Provision private PostgreSQL databases with DB subnet groups, KMS encryption, automated backups, and scoped security groups.
Operations, Security, and Capstone
Secure application secrets, implement CloudWatch observability, automate GitOps CI/CD, and build the capstone platform.
Secrets Manager and Application Configuration
Store credentials in AWS Secrets Manager, inject secrets dynamically into ECS Fargate tasks, and audit state security.
CloudWatch Logs, Metrics, and Alarms
Centralize container logs, track target group response times, configure CloudWatch alarms, and trigger SNS alerts.
CI/CD for OpenTofu
Automate OpenTofu validation and planning with GitHub Actions, PR plan comments, and keyless AWS OIDC authentication.
Infrastructure Troubleshooting and Incident Response
Triage 9 real-world platform outage scenarios across routing, security groups, ALB health checks, ECS tasks, and RDS.
Level 200 Capstone: Reusable AWS Application Platform
The capstone masterclass: Build, verify, secure, and teardown an end-to-end multi-tier application platform with OpenTofu.