Create an account using the invitation link provided via email. Ensure your account is properly set up to access AWS resources. Since NJIT is a member of AWS Educate, each student receives a $$50$ credit.

Familiarize yourself with the AWS Management Console and the basics of working with EC$2$ instances.

Follow the steps in the slide to create and launch $4$ basic Amazon EC$2$ instances. $($Assign an appropriate security group $($with appropriate firewall settings$)$ to allow network traffic between your instances$)$

$($optional$)$ Set up $$authorized$\_$keys$$ for the SSH server and $$known$\_$hosts$$ for the SSH client on each instance to enable passphraseless SSH login between them. This step is optional but will earn you an extra $10$ points if completed, increasing the maximum possible points to $30.$

Set Up Apache Spark if you use Spark for the project: Install Apache Spark on your EC$2$ instances. Verify the installation by running a simple Spark job to demonstrate the functionality of the setup $($no submission is needed for this step, you can finish this later before the project starts$).$