Introduction to Amazon Web Services (AWS)

What is AWS?

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the largest cloud platform globally, provides more than 200 fully functional services from data centers located all over the world.

Amazon Web Services is one online platform that provides scalable and reasonably priced cloud computing solutions.

AWS is a popular cloud platform that offers a variety of on-demand services, such as database storage, content delivery, and processing power, to help organizations grow and succeed.

What’s the Process?

That was the extent of the knowledge on AWS. Let’s look at the past after that.

History of AWS

• In the year 2002 – AWS services were launched
• In the year 2006- AWS cloud products were launched
• In the year 2012 – AWS had its first customer event
• In the year 2015- AWS achieved $4.6 billion
• In the year 2016- Surpassed the $10 billion revenue target
• In the year 2016- AWS snowball and AWS snowmobile were launched
• In the year 2019- Released approximately 100 cloud services

How Does AWS Work?

AWS usually works in several different configurations depending on the user’s requirements. However, the user must be able to see the type of configuration used and the particular server map with respect to the AWS service. 

Advantages of AWS

1. Employers are already familiar with AWS’s user-friendly database, operating system, architecture, and programming methodology.
2. AWS is an extremely affordable service. There are never any long-term commitments for whatever you want to buy.
3. It provides hybrid computing, billing and management for the centralized sector, and quick installation or removal of your application with a few clicks from any place.
4. There is no need to pay more to use AWS to run data servers.
5. Compared to competing private cloud servers, AWS provides a total ownership cost at incredibly affordable prices.

Disadvantages of AWS

1. AWS provides high-end solutions that facilitate quick or thorough responses. As a result, users might have to pay extra.
2. When switching to a cloud server, AWS cloud computing may provide issues such as limited control, outages, and backup protection.
3. AWS automatically limits resources like volumes, pictures, and snapshots based on the region.
4. The cloud application may not work correctly if your hardware system undergoes an unexpected change.

Migration

Migration services use 3 different sub-services, DMS, SMS, and snowball to transfer the data physically from Datacenter to AWS. 

1. DMS also known as Database Migration Service is used to migrate one database to another. 
2. SMS is a Server Migration Service that helps to migrate on-site servers to AWS within a short period of time. 
3. Snowball is used to migrate data inside in terabytes to data outside within the AWS environment. 

Applications of AWS

The most common applications of AWS are storage and backup, websites, gaming, mobile, web, and social media applications. Some of the most crucial applications in detail are as follows:

1. Storage and Backup

One of the reasons why many businesses use AWS is because it offers multiple types of storage to choose from and is easily accessible as well. It can be used for storage and file indexing as well as to run critical business applications.

2. Websites

Businesses can host their websites on the AWS cloud, similar to other web applications. 

3. Gaming

There is a lot of computing power needed to run gaming applications. AWS makes it easier to provide the best online gaming experience to gamers across the world.

4. Mobile, Web and Social Applications

A feature that separates AWS from other cloud services is its capability to launch and scale mobile, e-commerce, and SaaS applications. API-driven code on AWS can enable companies to build uncompromisingly scalable applications without requiring any OS and other systems.

5. Big Data Management and Analytics (Application)

• Amazon’s Elastic Map was streamlined to process enormous amounts of data using the Hadoop architecture.
• Amazon Kinesis will handle and analyze the streaming data.
• AWS Glue can be used to handle, extract, transform, and load jobs.
• With the help of Amazon Elasticsearch Service, a team can perform log analysis and tool monitoring using the open-source Elastic-search tool.
• Amazon Athena may be used to query data.
• Visualize data with Amazon QuickSight.

6. Artificial Intelligence

• Amazon Lex to offer voice and text chatbot technology.
• Amazon Polly to translate text-to-speech translation such as Alexa Voice Services and echo devices.
• Amazon Rekognition to analyze the image and face. 

7. Messages and Notifications

• For efficient business or core communication, use the Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).
• IT workers and marketers can send and receive emails using Amazon Simple Email Service (SES).
• Businesses can broadcast messages to end users or subscribe to them using Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS).

8. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

• Amazon Sumerian service enables users to make the use of AR and VR development tools to offer 3D web applications, E-commerce & sales applications, Marketing, Online education, Manufacturing, Training simulations, and Gaming.

9. Game Development

• Large game development organizations that provide analytics, back-end services, and a variety of developer tools employ AWS game development tools.
• AWS enables developers to store and host game data so they can evaluate player performance and adjust the game accordingly.

10. Internet of Things

• AWS IoT service offers a back-end platform to manage IoT devices as well as data ingestion to database services and AWS storage. 
• AWS IoT Button offers limited IoT functionality to hardware. 
• AWS Greengrass offers AWS computing for IoT device installation.

AWS Pricing Model

The affordability of AWS’s pricing structure is its most reliable feature. For instance, if a user wants to use a cloud server, AWS charges for one hour. Payments are provided in accordance with the absence of long-term obligations such as five or ten years. Furthermore, there is an AWS free tier service that raises the affordability of potential customers by providing free services with AWS servers up to 58 products. This enables users to have some experience with the AWS platform.

Companies Using AWS

Numerous businesses worldwide use AWS to create, implement, and host applications, whether they are startups, government agencies, food producers, retail establishments, or tech behemoths. Amazon claims that there are more than a million active AWS users. This is a list of businesses that use AWS:

• Netflix
• Intuit
• Coinbase
• Finra
• Johnson & Johnson
• Capital One
• Adobe
• Airbnb
• AOL
• Hitachi

AWS Services

Amazon offers a wide range of cloud application services. Here are some of the main services offered by the AWS ecosystem, along with a synopsis of how developers utilize them in their work.

Amazon has a list of services:

• Compute service
• Storage
• Database
• Networking and delivery of content
• Security tools
• Developer tools
• Management tools

Compute Service

These services help developers build, deploy, and scale an application in the cloud platform.

AWS EC2

• It is a web service that allows developers to rent virtual machines and automatically scales the compute capacity when required.
• It offers various instance types to developers so that they can choose required resources such as CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity based on their application requirements.

AWS Lambda

• AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service. It is also responsible for executing code for applications.
• It helps you execute a program without the hassle of managing servers.

Want a Job at AWS? Find Out What It Takes

Storage

AWS provides web data storage service for archiving data. Also, its primary advantage is disaster data recovery with high durability. 

Amazon S3

• It is an open cloud-based storage service that is utilized for online data backup.
• Amazon S3 provides storage through a web services interface and is designed for developers where web-scale computing can be easier for them. 

Amazon EBS

• For persistent data, it offers a high availability storage volume. EC2 instances on Amazon are the primary users of it.
• File storage, database storage, and block-level storage are examples of main storage that specifically uses EBS volumes.

Database

AWS database domain service offers cost-efficient, highly secure, and scalable database instances in the cloud.

DynamoDB

• It is a flexible NoSQL database service that offers fast and reliable performance with no scalability issues.
• It is a multi-region and durable database with instant built-in security, backup and restores features.

RDS

• It is a managed distributed relational database cloud service that helps developers to operate and scale a database in a simple manner.
• We launched it to simplify the setup, operation, and scaling process for developers while accessing a relational database.

Networking and Delivery of Content

It offers a highly secure cloud platform and connects your physical network to your private VN with a high transfer speed.

VPC

• It facilitates the deployment of AWS services into a private virtual cloud, including Amazon EC2 instances.
• It allows you to manage every aspect of the cloud network environment, including network gateways, subnets, route table setup, and the portion of your IP address range.
• This allows developers to simultaneously use IPv4 and IPv6 for your resources in a very safe setting.

Route 53

• By converting text into an IP address, this online service’s highly available Domain Name System (DNS) assists users in routing applications.
• In order to give developers an affordable way to direct end users to cloud apps, we launched it.

Developer Tools

It helps a user build, deploy, and run an application source code automatically. It also updates the server and instance on the workload.

CodeStar

It is a service designed to manage application development in a single place. Here, developers can quickly develop, build and deploy applications on AWS

Code Build

• This enables developers create and test code with continuous scaling and eliminates the headache of maintaining physical servers.
• To put it simply, it runs unit tests, compiles your code, and produces deployment-ready output artifacts.

Security, Identity & Compliance

It helps in monitoring a safe environment for your AWS resources by providing limited access to specific users.

IAM

• Identity Access Management is a framework that helps in maintaining access to AWS services in a secure way.
• The service gives you Shared access to your AWS account and Secure access to AWS services that run on the AWS EC2 application. 

KMS

• It enables users to create and manage the encryption keys that are used for encrypting data.
• The service includes a key generation method where digital sign within your applications becomes easier.

Management Tools

Using this service, an individual can optimize costs, minimize risks, and automate all the resources running efficiently on the AWS infrastructure.

Cloud Watch

• It is a monitoring tool for AWS resources and customer applications running on the AWS platform.
• The service helps you gather and access all your operational data in the form of logs from a single interface.

Cloud Formation

With the help of this service, you can monitor all of your AWS resources in one place, which will save you time maintaining them and free up more time to develop apps.

It allows developers to manage their cloud infrastructure using a text file or a template.

This concludes the article on what AWS is.

Conclusion

The history of cloud computing and AWS was discussed in this introductory course on “what is AWS.” We also examined each AWS service in detail.

Enrolling in our Cloud Architect Training program will assist people of all experience levels in learning AWS Cloud Architect approaches and tactics, regardless of whether they are seasoned AWS architects or hope to work in this fascinating field.

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