COSC2626/COSC2640 Cloud Computing

Exercise 1: AWS Account Setup and Software installation

What you will need for the course

• Good programming skills in Java (or any programming language) that is supported out of
the box by Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform for application development.
• Basic knowledge in Web programming (e.g. NodeJS, JavaScript, HTML).
• Familiarity in basic Window/Mac/Unix command line operations.
• Fundamental knowledge in Data analysis, Data Mining and Knowledge discovery.
• Good knowledge in net-centric communications.
• Ability to learn how to use Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of different software
development platforms and frameworks.

What you are expected to learn from this exercise

• Installation of the required programming environments, tools, and frameworks as well as

IDEs to carry out the hands-on exercises and assessments of this course.
• Set up your AWS Academy account to develop applications atop the AWS platform.

Activity 1: Create AWS Academy Account

Activity 2: Familiarize with the AWS Academy Portal

Activity 3: Install Java

Activity 4: Install IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition

Activity 5: Install AWS Toolkit

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Activity 1: Create AWS Academy Account

To work on AWS as part of the learning exercises of this course, you will need to sign
up for an AWS Academy account. You will, however, first need to be nominated for an
account by your educators to be able to create these accounts. If you have not yet been
nominated or have trouble logging into your AWS Academy account, talk to your tutors
immediately. Each one of these student accounts, by default, comes with $100 preloaded
free AWS credits to be used for the learning activities, experimentation, and assessments.

Students are highly advised to carefully use the free AWS credits as RMIT will not provide
any further top-ups or extensions unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Activity 2: Familiarize with the AWS Academy Portal

• Go to your Modules section in your AWS Academy Portal LMS associated with the
COSC2626/2640 program and find the learning materials available.
• Download and read the “AWS Academy Learner Lab Student Guide”, which focuses
on how to navigate through your AWS Academy learning environment, start/stop an AWS
lab session, etc.

• The dot next to AWS is now red, start a lab session by clicking on the Start Lab option,
as below.

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• When the dot next to AWS turns green, your lab environment is ready to use

• Find the AWS Access credentials associated with the lab session you’ve started in the
previous step by clicking on AWS Details first, and then AWS CLI: Show button as below.
Important: You will need them later to CONFIGURE your AWS Toolkit in Week 3.
Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

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• Click AWS to launch the AWS Management Console.

• Browse through different services available to you in the AWS Management console.
(Note: Your Recently visited may be different from the provided screenshot.)

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Activity 3: Install Java

The source code of most hands-on exercises we will demonstrate during the course will be
based on Java although we aim to provide the same exercises in other popular programming
languages/frameworks such as Python, PHP, Node.JS where appropriate. Therefore,
installing Java is required to follow the learning materials more effectively.

Step 1: Download and install the latest update of Java Development Kit 1.8 (JDK 8) runtime
environment if it is not already installed on your machine, via
https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/#java8.
If you are curious as to why we do not recommend using the latest versions of Java, for
consistency purposes as well as avoiding switching between different versions of Java across
different learning exercises, we recommend sticking to Java 1.8.

Step 2: Verify that your Java installation is working properly, and that the same Java version
is accessible to your IDE (by default), etc.

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Activity 4: Install IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition

Given that most hands-on exercises of this course are demonstrated using Java, we
recommend installing an IDE that has good support for Java-based software development,
which also has tight integration with the AWS Toolkit. Majority of the hands-on activities
you will be working on as part of the course will be based on the AWS Cloud platform, and
therefore, it is important that your preferred IDE works well with the AWS Toolkit, which is a
utility that allows you to perform a variety of activities via your preferred IDE.

Note: Eclipse, a great IDE for Java development, is no longer recommended for this course
since AWS Toolkit for Eclipse is no longer supported by AWS as of 31st of May 2023.

We recommend IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition (or optionally enterprise edition Ultimate
if you already have a license purchased) for all learning activities based on Java.

Step 1: Click here and scroll down to the following section in the IntelliJ IDEA download
page.

Step 2: Download and install IntelliJ IDEA Community e=Edition by following the instructions.

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Activity 5: Install AWS Toolkit

Step 1: Run IntelliJ IDEA, and select the Plugins option on the home page, as below.

Step 2: Type “AWS” in the search bar that appears under Marketplace and tap Enter. You
will see then see the AWS Toolkit plugin listed under the search results, as below.

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Step 3: Tap the install (or update if the plugin was previously installed) button on the AWS
Toolkit plugin home page to install the toolkit.

After the plugin is finished installing, restart your IDE.

You will see “AWS Toolkit” appearing under Installed.

More information can be found at:

https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2022/02/aws-in-intellij-idea/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvBFFDYaqSM&ab_channel=IntelliJIDEAbyJetBrains

We will learn how to configure and connect the AWS Toolkit to your AWS account in
Week 3.

Wrap UP

• Make sure to set up your AWS Academy accounts during the class tutorial session.
These will be used for the subsequent tutorials as well as assessments.
• Make sure everything is installed and ready to use before you attend your next tutorial.
• If you have trouble going through the exercise, attend the helpdesk sessions for help.