What is AWS

Table of Contents
What is Cloud Computing?
What is AWS?
History of AWS
How Does AWS Work?
Advantages of AWS

AWS stands for Amazon Web Services, it needs no formal introduction, given its
immense popularity. The leading cloud provider in the marketplace is Amazon Web
Services. It provides over 170 AWS services to the developers so they can access them
from anywhere at the time of need.

AWS has customers in over 190 countries worldwide, including 5000 ed-tech institutions
and 2000 government organizations. Many companies like ESPN, Adobe, Twitter,
Netflix, Facebook, BBC, etc., use AWS services.

For example, Adobe creates and updates software without depending upon the IT
teams. It uses its services by offering multi-terabyte operating environments for its
clients. By deploying its services with Amazon services, Adobe integrated and operated
its software in a simple manner.

Now, before getting started with what is AWS, let us first give you a brief description of
what cloud computing is.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of online services (such as servers, databases,

software) to users. With the help of cloud computing, storing data on local machines is
not required. It helps you access data from a remote server. Moreover, it is also used to
store and access data from anywhere across the world.

What is AWS?

AWS Meaning: The Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform provides more than 200
fully featured services from data centers located all over the world, and is the world's
most comprehensive cloud platform.

Amazon web service is an online platform that provides scalable and cost-effective
cloud computing solutions.

AWS is a broadly adopted cloud platform that offers several on-demand operations like
compute power, database storage, content delivery, etc., to help corporates scale and
grow.

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

Moving forward, we will learn more about AWS 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. AWS provides a user-friendly programming model, architecture, database as

well as operating system that has been already known to employers.

2. AWS is a very cost-effective service. There is no such thing as long-term

commitments for anything you would like to purchase.

3. It offers billing and management for the centralized sector, hybrid computing,
and fast installation or removal of your application in any location with few
clicks.

4. There is no need to pay extra money on running data servers by AWS.

5. AWS offers a total ownership cost at very reasonable rates in comparison to

other private cloud servers.

Disadvantages of AWS
 1. AWS has supportive paid packages for intensive or immediate response.
Thus, users might need to pay extra money for that.

2. There might be some cloud computing problems in AWS especially when you
move to a cloud Server such as backup protection, downtime, and some
limited control.

3. From region to region, AWS sets some default limitations on resources such
as volumes, images, or snapshots.

4. If there is a sudden change in your hardware system, the application on the

cloud might not offer great performance.

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 Elastic MapReduced to process large amounts of data via the

Hadoop framework.

 Amazon Kinesis to analyze and process the streaming data.

 AWS Glue to handle, extract, transform and load jobs.

 Amazon Elasticsearch Service to enable a team to perform log analysis, and

tool monitoring with the help of the open source tool, Elastic-search.
  Amazon Athena to query data.

 Amazon QuickSight to visualize data.

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

 Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) for effective business or core

communication.

 Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) to receive or send emails for IT

professionals and marketers.

 Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) to enable businesses to subscribe or

publish messages to end users.

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

 AWS game development tools are used by large game development

companies that offer developer back-end services, analytics, and various
developer tools.
  AWS allows developers to host game data as well as store the data to analyze
the gamer's performance and develop 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

AWS pricing model is very cost-effective which makes it most reliable. For instance, if a
user wants to use a cloud server for an hour, AWS asks the user to pay only for an
hour. There is no such long-term commitment as five years or 10 years and pay
accordingly. Besides, there is an AWS free tier service to increase the potential
customers' affordability by offering free services with AWS servers up to 58 products
that help users gain some experience with the AWS platform.

Companies Using AWS

Whether it’s technology giants, startups, government, food manufacturers or retail

organizations, there are so many companies across the world using AWS to develop,
deploy and host applications. According to Amazon, the number of active AWS users
exceeds 1,000,000. Here is a list of companies using AWS:

 Netflix

 Intuit
  Coinbase

 Finra

 Johnson & Johnson

 Capital One

 Adobe

 Airbnb

 AOL

 Hitachi

AWS Services

Amazon has many services for cloud applications. Let us list down a few key services of
the AWS ecosystem and a brief description of how developers use them in their
business.

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.

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. Click here, to know more.

Amazon EBS

 It provides a high availability storage volume for persistent data. It is mainly

used by Amazon EC2 instances.

 EBS volumes are used explicitly for primary storage such as file storage,
databases storage, and block-level storage.

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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 helps a developer to deploy AWS resources, such as Amazon EC2

instances into a private virtual cloud.

 It gives you control over the complete cloud network environment, including
the section of your IP address range, subnets, route table configuration, and
network gateways.

 With this, developers can both IPv4 and IPv6 at a time for your resources in a
highly secure environment.

Route 53

 It is a web service with a highly available Domain Name System (DNS) that
helps users to route software by translating the text into an IP address.

 We launched it for developers to provide them a cost-effective method of

routing end users to cloud applications.

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 removes the hassle of managing physical servers and helps developers
build and test code with continuous scaling.

 In simple words, it compiles your code, executes unit tests, and gives output
artifacts that are ready to deploy.

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.

Note: Click here, to know about IAM.

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.

Key concepts of AWS Billing Services

AWS offers a wide variety of services starting from cloud services like compute, storage, database
and networking. As a result, the pricing of each product varies from one another. However, some of
the key concepts related to pricing and billing remain similar across most of the products. I am going
to discuss some of the best practices as follows.

 Using the correct pricing model for your application – As it goes by the name, when you
start building your applications, or rather when you deploy your applications for the first time
to AWS, you should start thinking about the right pricing model that will suffice the needs of
your application. For example, let us consider an Elastic Compute Cloud instance (EC2) that
enables us to run virtual machines on the cloud. There are four types of pricing models
available for such an EC2 instance:
 1. On-Demand Pricing – In such a model, you need to pay for the compute or the
database for the time is running. You don’t have any long term commitments, and
you can terminate the instance when your task is completed
2. Savings Plans – These are savings plans offered by AWS to its customers that plan to
run an EC2 instance for a longer duration, such as 1 or 3 years. In such a case you
need to pay the amount upfront and it will save you lots as compared to the previous
plan
3. Spot Instances – These are special pricing models available only for EC2 instances in
which there is a provision to save up to 90% of the on-demand pricing model.
However, the catch here is that the instances are available on spare compute capacity
and your instance can be stopped whenever the capacity is over
4. Reserved Instances – These are special pricing models similar to that of the savings
plans, however, the size, operating system and tenancy remain fixed for this pricing
model
 Understanding the basic principles of pricing – Another important factor that determines
the price of AWS services is the data that resides or moves out of the system. For example,
when your data is being sent out of the Amazon services to the internet, it is then charged
and it appears on the monthly statement as an “AWS Data Transfer Out”. For typical data
storage, you usually pay a fixed price per GB. It is beneficial to store more data such that the
cost of each GB becomes less

AWS Billing Services for Cost Management

There are a few services offered by AWS to help manage the cost of your account efficiently.

AWS Cost Explorer – It is one of the most frequently used services to track how are your services
being charged. By default, there is a report that shows a breakdown of the costs per day within your
AWS Account. You can also slice and dice the data using the AWS Cost Explorer with a number of
dimensions such as Service, Region, etc. All these reports help you identify your costs for the existing
month and also provides a forecast of the month-end charges. The forecasted charges also take into
account some of the one-time charges from the previous month and thus might not be accurate.
 Figure 2 – AWS Cost Explorer

AWS Billing and Cost Management Dashboard – This is the service that you use while paying your
AWS bills at the end of the month. All the charges incurred by the services are invoiced at the end of
the month and billed during the first two business days of the next month. It then automatically
charges the billed amount from your credit card so you need not worry about manually paying the
AWS bills. In this dashboard, you also get to see a nice overview and a breakdown of the costs of
each of the services. It is useful to keep track of all your expenses in a single place.
 Figure 3 – AWS Billing and Cost Management Dashboard

Budget Reports – You can also keep a check on your costs by assigning a specific budget amount
that you want to be within. Once the budget is defined, you can keep track of how your services are
costly as compared to the budgeted amount. You can also set up an automated alert when your
actual costs reach up to a certain level of the budgeted amount. This ensures that you do not pay for
overuse of the services. Even in case of any services being billed without your attention, you can still
stop the services so that you won’t end up getting high bill amounts.
 Figure 4 – AWS Budget Report

AWS Cost Anomaly Detection – Sometimes your credentials might get compromised and that might
lead to unforeseen costs or services being started up without your knowledge. To tackle such
scenarios, AWS uses Machine Learning to continually monitor the services within your account and
whenever there are any malicious activities, it raises alerts and notifies the AWS customers to take
immediate actions.

AWS Pricing Calculator – This is a web-based service that enables AWS customers to estimate the
cost of running services for a particular use case. You can add and remove multiple services that will
be required to support your use case and then a consolidated bill of all the services will be made
available. This is helpful for customers to get an idea about their budget and whether they should
move ahead with the services or not.
 Figure 5 – AWS Pricing Calculator

Migration Evaluator – This service is used to determine the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a
customer. Usually used for customers who have their systems running on on-premise servers or
private data centers and planning to move to AWS.