Your First Cloud Deployment

🔄 Quick Recall: In the previous lesson, you compared AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud — learning that core concepts transfer across platforms and that platform choice depends on ecosystem fit, career goals, and specific workloads. Now you’ll get hands-on experience by deploying your first cloud resource using free-tier accounts, with AI as your guide.

Before You Touch Anything: Set Up Billing Alerts

This is the most important step in this entire course. Before launching any cloud resource, configure a billing alert. Unexpected charges are the number-one beginner frustration.

Walk me through setting up a billing alert on
[AWS / Azure / Google Cloud] step by step.

I want to be notified by email if my spending
exceeds $5 in any month. I'm on the free tier
and don't want any surprise charges.

For each step:
1. Tell me exactly where to click (menu path)
2. What to type in each field
3. What the default settings should be
4. Common mistakes to avoid

Also tell me: which free-tier services have
limits I might accidentally exceed?

On AWS, the process takes 3 minutes: go to AWS Budgets, create a monthly cost budget of $5, and add your email for alerts. Do this first. Everything else can wait.

Your First Virtual Machine

A virtual machine (VM) is the most fundamental cloud resource — a computer running in someone else’s data center that you control remotely. Here’s how to launch one with AI guidance:

Walk me through launching my first virtual machine
on [AWS / Azure / Google Cloud].

Requirements:
- Free tier eligible (I don't want to pay anything)
- The simplest possible setup for learning
- I want to connect to it via the browser (no SSH setup)

For each step:
1. Exact menu path and button to click
2. Which options to select (and which to leave as default)
3. What each option means in plain English
4. What NOT to do (common mistakes)

After it's running, show me how to:
- Verify it's working
- Connect to it
- Run a simple command
- STOP the instance (so it doesn't keep running)
- TERMINATE the instance (delete it completely)

Explain the difference between stop and terminate.

✅ Quick Check: What’s the difference between stopping and terminating a cloud virtual machine? Stopping is like shutting down a computer — the machine turns off but the disk is preserved. You can restart it later. You may still be charged for the disk storage. Terminating is like recycling the computer — everything is deleted permanently. For learning purposes, always terminate instances you don’t need to avoid any charges.

The Free-Tier Safe Zone

Each provider has specific free-tier limits. Stay within these to pay nothing:

Common traps that cost money:

• Launching an instance larger than the free-tier type
• Forgetting to terminate instances after experimenting
• Creating Elastic IPs (AWS) and not attaching them to running instances
• Exceeding storage limits with snapshots or extra volumes

Hosting a Simple Website

Static website hosting is a perfect second project — it’s practical, visible, and uses a different cloud service:

Help me host a simple static website (HTML + CSS)
on [AWS S3 / Azure Static Web Apps / Google Cloud Storage].

I have:
- An index.html file
- A styles.css file
- A few images

Walk me through:
1. Creating the storage bucket/resource
2. Uploading my files
3. Enabling public website hosting
4. Getting the URL where my site is live
5. Setting up HTTPS (if available on free tier)

Keep it simple — this is my first time.
Tell me what each step does and why.

✅ Quick Check: Why is static website hosting on object storage (S3, Blob Storage) better than running a virtual machine for simple HTML/CSS sites? Because object storage is serverless — no operating system to patch, no web server to configure, no instance to keep running. It costs pennies per month (often free within free tier limits), scales automatically to handle any traffic, and requires zero maintenance. A VM for the same job costs more, needs maintenance, and can crash.

Using AI as Your Cloud Tutor

AI assistants are the best learning tool for cloud computing because they can explain anything at your level:

I just got this error message while trying to
[what you were doing] on [AWS / Azure / Google Cloud]:

[paste the exact error message]

Help me:
1. What does this error mean in plain English?
2. Why did it happen?
3. How do I fix it step by step?
4. How do I prevent it next time?

This single prompt pattern eliminates hours of frustrating Googling. Cloud error messages are notoriously cryptic — AI translates them instantly.

Key Takeaways

• Set up billing alerts BEFORE launching any cloud resource — this prevents the number-one beginner frustration of unexpected charges
• Virtual machines are the most fundamental cloud resource — start with the free-tier eligible instance type and always terminate instances you don’t need
• Static website hosting on object storage (S3, Blob, Cloud Storage) is simpler, cheaper, and more reliable than running a VM for HTML/CSS sites
• Always ask AI to explain cloud commands before running them — cloud resources cost real money and misconfigurations can expose data
• “Stop” preserves a VM’s disk (you might still pay for storage); “terminate” deletes everything permanently — know the difference before experimenting

Up Next: You’ll learn cloud security fundamentals — the critical concepts of IAM, least privilege, encryption, and zero trust that protect your data and keep your cloud environment safe.