AWS Static Website Hosting

Project Overview

Objective

To deploy a static CV website on AWS using:

Amazon S3: For storage of static website files
CloudFront: Content Delivery Network (CDN) with HTTPS
Route 53: DNS management for the domain
ACM: Amazon Certificate Manager for SSL certificates

Why This Project?

Learn core AWS services for web hosting
Improve website performance and security
Create a professional cloud project for my portfolio
Understand end-to-end static website deployment

Architecture Diagram

Architecture showing S3, CloudFront, Route 53, and ACM integration

About Route 53 Hosted Zones

A Hosted Zone in Route 53 is a container for DNS records that define how traffic is routed for a specific domain. There are two types:

Public Hosted Zone: Routes internet traffic to your resources
Private Hosted Zone: Routes traffic within your VPCs

In this project, we created a public hosted zone for our domain buildcloudwithanwer.co.uk.

About DNS Records

DNS records in Route 53 tell the internet how to handle requests for your domain. Key record types:

Record Type	Purpose	Example
A	Maps a hostname to an IPv4 address	example.com → 192.0.2.1
AAAA	Maps a hostname to an IPv6 address	example.com → 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334
CNAME	Maps a hostname to another hostname	www.example.com → example.com
Alias	AWS-specific record that maps to AWS resources	example.com → CloudFront distribution
NS	Nameserver records for your hosted zone	Delegates domain to Route 53 nameservers

Step-by-Step Implementation

Step 1: Domain Registration & Route 53 Setup

View Detailed Steps

Why Route 53?

Provides reliable DNS management
Needed to link buildcloudwithanwer.co.uk to AWS resources
Supports health checking and failover

Steps Performed:

Registered domain (buildcloudwithanwer.co.uk) via Names.co.uk
Created a Hosted Zone in Route 53

Updated nameservers at registrar (names.co.uk) to AWS NS records:

ns-1720.awsdns-23.co.uk
ns-568.awsdns-07.net
ns-1182.awsdns-19.org
ns-17.awsdns-02.com

Waited for DNS propagation (took about 12 hours)

Screenshots:

Step 2: S3 Bucket Configuration

View Detailed Steps

Why Amazon S3?

Cost-effective storage for static files
No servers to manage
High durability and availability
Built-in static website hosting capability

Steps Performed:

Created bucket named buildcloudwithanwer.co.uk
Enabled static website hosting (Index document: index.html)

Set bucket policy for public access:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Principal": "*",
    "Action": "s3:GetObject",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::buildcloudwithanwer.co.uk/*"
  }]
}

Uploaded CV files (index.html, assets)

Screenshots:

Step 3: CloudFront Distribution

View Detailed Steps

Why CloudFront?

Global CDN for faster loading worldwide
Free HTTPS via AWS ACM
DDoS protection
Edge locations improve performance

Steps Performed:

Created distribution with S3 as origin
Configured alternate domain name: cv.buildcloudwithanwer.co.uk
Requested SSL Certificate via AWS ACM (free)
Key settings:
- Default root object: index.html
- Protocol: Redirect HTTP → HTTPS
- Caching: Optimized for static content
- Price class: Use all edge locations

Screenshots:

Step 4: Route 53 DNS Records

View Detailed Steps

Why DNS Configuration?

To route traffic from domain to CloudFront
To enable custom domain with HTTPS
To manage subdomains effectively

Steps Performed:

Created A record for cv.buildcloudwithanwer.co.uk
Configured Alias target to point to CloudFront distribution
Verified SSL (takes ~30 minutes)
Tested HTTPS connection

Screenshots:

Performance Optimization

CloudFront Caching: Set TTL (Time-To-Live) to 1 day for static assets to reduce origin requests to S3
Compression: Enabled Brotli/Gzip compression in CloudFront for smaller file sizes
HTTP/2: Used by default in CloudFront for faster parallel loads
Edge Locations: Content served from nearest location to user

Cost Optimization

Free Tier Usage:
- S3: 5GB storage (free for 12 months)
- CloudFront: 1TB free monthly data transfer
- Route 53: Free for basic DNS queries
No Unnecessary Services: Avoided EC2/ELB (not needed for static sites)
Monitoring: Set billing alerts to avoid surprises
ACM: Free SSL certificates

Scalability

Global Reach: CloudFront serves content from 300+ edge locations worldwide
Auto-Scaling: S3 + CloudFront handle traffic spikes effortlessly
Future-Proof: Can add Lambda@Edge for dynamic content processing
High Availability: Built-in redundancy across AWS infrastructure

Lessons Learned

✅ DNS Propagation requires patience (up to 48 hours)
✅ HTTPS is mandatory for modern sites (CloudFront + ACM made it easy)
✅ S3 is ideal for static sites (no server management)
✅ CloudFront significantly improves global performance
✅ Route 53 provides reliable DNS management

Cleanup Instructions

Delete CloudFront distribution
Empty and delete S3 bucket
Remove Route 53 hosted zone
Delete ACM certificate (if no longer needed)

Conclusion

This project successfully demonstrated:

AWS static hosting best practices
Cost-effective architecture (free tier friendly)
Real-world skills for my cloud career
End-to-end deployment of a professional website

Next Steps

Explore adding CI/CD pipeline (e.g., GitHub → S3 auto-deploy)
Implement website analytics
Add contact form using AWS Lambda and API Gateway
Set up monitoring with CloudWatch