# Set up tips for your AWS

Getting started in AWS can be a lot. When I first started I had many questions and felt very apprehensive. It felt massive and uncontrollable. I was terrified of unforeseen charges and that crazy bill. I was wanting to learn and knew that through that process I was bound to screw something up. I certainly did not need to pay thousands of dollars because I forgot to flip a switch.

Let's be real. AWS is indeed massive with so many services, many that seemingly do the same things. That is going to be confusing. Forgetting a switch when there are so many switches, that seemed more likely than not.

As one who has been there, I would like to give a few tips you should do and be familiar with before diving in. AWS is amazing and you should not be afraid of it, you need to be responsible.

To get your AWS account you will need a credit card. They require this for several reasons, the top most is to ensure account holders are indeed responsible adults, not to take your money. It has been my experience that AWS tends to go out of the way to help you with cost and security management. Both of which you need to be familiar with and continue to stay on top of if you are to thrive as a developer or engineer.

If this is your first AWS account, then you are very likely signing up for the free tier. The free tier gives you access to certain services for free for 12 months. This is a great place to start, but I do want to touch on this for just a moment.

When I first started with AWS I thought the free tier was something used to draw people in. That is not the case. AWS has many services that are always free and others with very generous free limits whether you are on the free tier of not. The free tier is in addition to what they already offer at no cost. So don't be overly worried about sudden charges once the 12 months are up. If you are responsible, I believe you will be very happy.

When you initially create your account you will use an email address. It can be any email address so keep this in mind when creating the account. This account is considered the **root** account and is top tier. This account will have access to everything in AWS for you. You may not realize it on signing up, but that account even has a special way of signing in. *"Keep it secret, keep it safe"*.

The **root** account should not be your everyday account. Even if it is just you. Especially if you are just using it to learn, start today with best practice. You should lock it down with MFA (multi factor authentication). I use the google authenticator app on my phone for the roots of my accounts, but there are many different ways. The documentation on this is very good and the process is straight forward. Consider it the first thing learned with AWS, because it is and should not be overlooked. Consider, if you had a client or employer that wanted you to set up an AWS account for them, would you suggest MFA on the root? If you said no, you should look into it, if you said yes, then you can feel confident having done it before.

After you have locked down the root account and taken a look around, you will want to create an admin account for you daily use. Here you will dive into IAM and users, groups, roles, and policies. This can be fun. AWS has built out a ton of policies for you already. The admin policy will grant admin access to the account which is everything you want. During the process you will be asked if you want the key generated or if you want to give one of your own. This is a personal preference but deal with the key. It is easy to just download it. Even if you are only going to use the account for console access, I would recommend getting the key.

You will need the key to set up the AWS CLI. Again, even if you never plan to use bash or the terminal, you should set up the CLI. It is a part of being a developer or engineer. It is part of learning AWS. It is a part of setting up your AWS account.

Once you have those two accounts you can log back in as root and set up some billing alarms. You can set up AWS so that if you ever approach or go above a certain threshold, you will be notified. No matter your budget, this is a quick, free, safe guard service that is a must. You should never be surprised by a bill. If or when you forget to flip that switch, This alert will remind you.

And there you have it. My tips for success with AWS if you are getting started.
* You are responsible
* MFA on the root account
* Set up budget alarm
* Admin account for daily use
* Set up the AWS CLI

Now lets go build some awesome worthy stuff - AWS. I hope this helps ease your mind if you are still on the fence about getting started.