AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a comprehensive, evolving cloud computing platform provided by Amazon that includes a mixture of infrastructure-as-a-service IasS, platform-as-a-service PasS and packaged-software-as-a-service SasS offerings. AWS services can offer an organization tools such as compute power, database storage and content delivery services.
Amazon.in Web Services launched its first web services in 2002 from the internal infrastructure that Amazon.in built to handle its online retail operations. In 2006, it began offering its defining IaaS services. AWS was one of the first companies to introduce a pay-as-you-go cloud computing model that scales to provide users with compute, storage or throughput as needed.
AWS offers many different tools and solutions for enterprises and software developers that can be used in data centers in up to 190 countries. Groups such as government agencies, education institutions, non-profits and private organizations can use AWS services.
How AWS works
AWS is separated into different services; each can be configured in different ways based on the user's needs. Users can see configuration options and individual server maps for an AWS service.More than 200 services comprise the AWS portfolio, including those for compute, databases, infrastructure management, application development and security. These services, by category, include the following:
compute
storage
databases
data management
migration
hybrid cloud
networking
development tools
management
monitoring
security
governance
big data management
analytics
artificial intelligence (AI)
mobile development
messages and notification
Availability
AWS provides services from dozens of data centers spread across 87 availability zones (AZs) in regions across the world. An AZ is a location that contains multiple physical data centers. A region is a collection of AZs in geographic proximity connected by low-latency network links.
A business will choose one or multiple AZs for a variety of reasons, such as compliance, proximity to end customers and availability optimization. For example, an AWS customer can spin up virtual machines (VM) and replicate data in different AZs to achieve a highly reliable cloud infrastructure that is resistant to failures of individual servers or an entire data center.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a service that provides virtual servers – called EC2 instances -- for compute capacity. The EC2 service offeres dozens of instances with varying capacities and sizes. These are tailored to specific workload types and applications, such as memory-intensive and accelerated-computing jobs. AWS also provides Auto Scaling, a tool to dynamically scale capacity to maintain instance health and performance.
Storage
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) provides scalable object storage for data backup, collection and analytics. An IT professional stores data and files as S3 objects -- which can range up to five gigabytes – inside S3 to keep them organized. A business can save money with S3 through its Infrequent Access storage class or by using Amazon glacier for long-term cold storage.
Databases and data management
The Amazon relational database service includes options for Oracle, MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server and a proprietary high-performance database called Amazon Aurora. It provides a relational database management system for AWS users. AWS also offers managed NOSQL databases through Amazon DynamoDB.
Migration and hybrid cloud
AWS includes various tools and services designed to help users migrate applications, databases, servers and data onto its public cloud. The AWS Migration Hub provides a location to monitor and manage migrations from on premises to the cloud. Once in the cloud, EC2 Simple Systems Manager helps an IT team configure on-premises servers and AWS instances.
Networking
An Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) gives an administrator control over a virtual network to use an isolated section of the AWS cloud. AWS automatically provisions new resources within a VPC for extra protection.
Admins can balance network traffic with the Elastic Load Balancing service, which includes the Application Load Balancer and Network Load Balancer. AWS also provides a domain name system called Amazon Route 53 that routes end users to applications.
Developer tools
A developer can take advantage of AWS command-line tools and software development kits (SDKs) like AWS CloudShell to deploy and manage applications and services:
AWS Command Line Interface, which is Amazon's proprietary code interface;
AWS Tools for PowerShell, which developers use to manage cloud services from Mac, Windows and Linux environments.
AWS Serverless Application Model, which developers use to simulate an AWS environment to test functions of AWS Lambda, a compute service that lets developers run code from over 200 AWS services and SaaS applications.
AWS SDKs are available for a variety of platforms and programming languages, including Android, C++, iOS, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python and Ruby.
Amazon API Gateway lets a development team create, manage and monitor custom application programming interfaces (APIs) that let applications access data or functionality from back-end services. API Gateway manages thousands of concurrent API calls at once.
AWS also provides Amazon Elastic Transcoder, a packaged media transcoding service, and AWS Step Functions, a service that visualizes workflows for microservices-based applications.
A development team can also create continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines with the following services:
AWS CodePipeline to model and automate the steps of the software release process;
AWS CodeBuild to automate the writing and compiling code;
AWS CodeDeploy, which can be used with AWS Lambda, to automatically deploy code in EC2 instances;
AWS CodeStar, a cloud-based service for managing various AWS projects; and
AWS Cloud9 to write, run and debug code in the cloud.
A developer can store code in Git repositories with AWS CodeCommit and evaluate the performance of microservices-based applications with AWS X-Ray.
AWS also offers machine learning (ML) services for developers:
AWS CodeWhisperer, which provides code recommendations to developers based on prior code they've used;
AWS CodeArtifact, a development paradigm for building ML models; and
Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service that helps developers and data scientists build and deploy ML models.
Management and monitoring
An admin can manage and track cloud resource configuration using AWS Config and AWS Config Rules. Those tools, along with AWS Trusted Advisor, can help an IT team avoid improperly configured and needlessly expensive cloud resource deployments.
AWS provides several automation tools in its portfolio. An admin can automate infrastructure provisioning via AWS CloudFormation templates, and also use AWS OpsWorks for Chef to automate infrastructure and system configurations.
Security and governance
AWS provides a range of services for cloud security, including AWS Identity and Access Management, which lets admins define and manage user access to resources. An admin can also create a user directory with Amazon Cloud Directory or connect cloud resources to an existing Microsoft Active Directory with the AWS Directory Service. Additionally, the AWS Organizations service lets a business establish and manage policies for multiple AWS accounts.
Big data management and analytics
AWS includes the following big data analytics and application services:
Amazon EMR, which offers an Apache Hadoop framework to process large amounts of data;
Amazon Kinesis, which provides tools to process and analyze streaming data;
AWS Glue, which is a service that handles extract, transform and load jobs;
Amazon Elasticsearch Service, which enables a team to perform application monitoring, log analysis and other tasks with the open source Elasticsearch tool;
Amazon Athena for S3, which lets analysts query data; and
Amazon QuickSight, which helps analysts visualize data.
Artificial intelligence
AWS offers a range of AI model development and delivery platforms, as well as packaged AI-based applications. The Amazon AI suite of tools includes the following:
Amazon Lex for voice and text chatbot technology;
Amazon Polly for text-to-speech translation;
Amazon Rekognition for image and facial analysis;
Amazon Textract to extract important text and data from documents;
Amazon Kendra to enhance website and application searches;
Amazon Forecast for end-to-end business prediction models;
Amazon CodeGuru to automate code reviews and detect costly, inefficient code; and
Amazon Lookout for Equipment for predictive maintenance.
Mobile development
The AWS Mobile Hub offers a collection of tools and services for mobile app developers. One of those tools is the AWS Mobile SDK, which provides code samples and libraries.
A mobile app developer can also use Amazon Cognito to manage user access to mobile apps, as well as Amazon Pinpoint to send push notifications to application end users and analyze the effectiveness of those communications.
Messages and notifications
AWS messaging services provide core communication for users and applications. Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) is a managed message queue that sends, stores and receives messages between components of distributed applications to ensure the parts of an application work as intended.
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) enables a business to send publish-subscribe messages to endpoints, such as end users or services. SNS includes a mobile messaging feature that enables push messaging to mobile devices. Amazon Simple Email Service provides a platform for IT professionals and marketers to send and receive emails.
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)
AWS offers AR and VR development tools through Babylon.js and AWS Simplify. Babylon.js lets users create AR and VR applications without needing to know programming or create 3D graphics. The service also enables users to test and publish applications in-browser. Babylon.js can be used in the following:
3D web applications
e-commerce
sales applications
marketing
online education
manufacturing
training simulations
gaming
AWS Simplify lets developers host and deploy their AR and VR applications.
Game development
AWS can also be used for game development. Large game developing companies use AWS services for games, such as Ubisoft's For Honor. AWS can provide services for each part of a game's lifecycle.
For example, AWS provides developer back-end services, analytics and developer tools such as Amazon Lumberyard, which aid developers in making 3D games. Back-end services like Amazon GameLift helps with building, deploying and scaling a developer's platform as well as defending against DDoS attacks.
Analytics help developers know their customers and how they play a game. Developers can also store data or host game data on AWS servers.
Internet of things (IoT)
AWS also has a variety of services that enable IoT deployments. The AWS IoT service provides a back-end platform to manage IoT devices and data ingestion to other AWS storage and database services.
The Amazon IoT Button provides hardware for limited IoT functionality and AWS IoT Greengrass brings AWS compute capabilities to IoT devices.
AWS pricing models, competition and customers
AWS's pay-as-you-go model for its cloud services is either on a per-hour or per-second basis. There is also an option to reserve a set amount of compute capacity at a discounted price for customers who prepay or sign up for one- or three-year usage commitments. Customers can get volume-based discounts, meaning the more of a service they use, the less they pay per gigabyte.
The AWS Free Tier is another option. Customers can access up to 60 products and start building on the AWS platform at no cost. Free Tier is offered in three different options: always free, 12 months free and trials.
Potential customers can use AWS's pricing calculator to estimate expenditures. And AWS-certified third-party experts provide on-demand help to customers picking a pricing plan.
As of the first quarter of 2022, Amazon AWS controls 33% of the total cloud market, according to Synergy Research Group. This is the most out of any of its competitors, including Microsoft Azure, Google and IBM in the public IaaS market.
Companies using AWS include the following:
Verizon
Netflix
PBS
FOX
United Airlines
Air Canada
Salesforce
BMW Group
Siemens
GoDaddy
Acquisitions
AWS has acquired multiple organizations. Generally, its hasn't acquired larger well-established companies but, rather, smaller organizations and startups that bolster and improve the cloud vendor's existing offerings. Here are some of its recent acquisitions:
DataRow in 2020, a startup that specialized in a web-based client for Amazon Redshift, its cloud data warehouse;
TSO Logic in 2019, a cloud migration company that provides analytics, letting customers view the state of their data center and model a migration to the cloud;
CloudEndure in 2019, a company that focuses on workload migrations to the public cloud, disaster recovery and backup; and
Sqrrl in 2018, a security startup that collects data from points such as gateways, servers and routers and puts those findings inside a security dashboard.
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