## Scope

-   Currently, this guide covers selected “core” services, such as EC2, S3, Load Balancers, EBS, and IAM, and partial details and tips around other services. We expect it to expand.
-   It is not a tutorial, but rather a collection of information you can read and return to. It is for both beginners and the experienced.
-   The goal of this guide is to be:
    -   **Brief:** Keep it dense and use links
    -   **Practical:** Basic facts, concrete details, advice, gotchas, and other “folk knowledge”
    -   **Current:** We can keep updating it, and anyone can contribute improvements
    -   **Thoughtful:** The goal is to be helpful rather than present dry facts. Thoughtful opinion with rationale is welcome. Suggestions, notes, and opinions based on real experience can be extremely valuable. (We believe this is both possible with a guide of this format, unlike in some [other venues](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/201994/is-there-a-place-to-ask-opinion-based-questions).)
-   This guide is not sponsored by AWS or AWS-affiliated vendors. It is written by and for engineers who use AWS.

***

The Open Guide to AWS by Josh Levy
<https://github.com/open-guides/og-aws/>
