Introduction to Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a leading top platform in providing the web services of various domains. AWS follows the trends of digital IT and comes up needy services with optimized performances covering a wide range of services from Compute to Storage. It covers a wider range of customers of different domains to expand their business operations. This Article covers the fundamentals of AWS and its scope of IT business.

What Is AWS And Why Is It Used?

AWS stands for Amazon Web Services, It is an expanded cloud computing platform provided by Amazon Company. AWS provides a wide range of services with a pay-as-per-use pricing model over the Internet such as Storage, Computing power, Databases, Machine Learning services, and much more. AWS facilitates for both businesses and individual users with effectively hosting the applications, storing the data securely, and making use of a wide variety of tools and services improving management flexibility for IT resources.

History Of AWS

Then providing Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) revolutionized with scalable management of Storage. Coming up with effective compute and storage services and providing them rental basis helped many startup companies and users with the cost of manual Hardware Infrasture setup. Introducing the concept of serverless computing with AWS lambda services enhanced its business globally. It came up with services like Elastic Beanstalk made the deployment of applications much easier bringing large audiences. AWS always came with diverse array of services offering with technical innovations, updated services with current trends. AWS has emerged as a powerhouse in the world of Cloud Computing.

How AWS Works?

AWS comes up with its own network infrastructure on establishing the datacenters in different regions mostly all over the world. Its global Infrastructure acts as a backbone for operations and services provided by AWS. It facilitates the users on creating secure environments using Amazon VPCs ( Virtual Private Clouds ). Essential services like Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 for utilizing the compute and storage service with elastic scaling. It supports the dynamic scaling of the applications with the services such as Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing ( AWS ELB ). It provides a good user-friendly AWS Management Console facilitating seamless configuration and management of AWS services to the Users. Its Architecture ensures high availability , fault tolerance making AWS as a versatile powerful Cloud Computing Platform.

AWS Fundamentals

In the Journey of AWS, understanding the key concepts such as Regions, Availability Zones, Global Network Infrastructure, etc is crucial. The fundamentals of AWS keep on maintaining the applications reliable and scalable with services globally with coming to a strategic deployment of resources for optimal performance and resilience. The following are the some of the main fundamentals of AWS:

• Regions: AWS provide the services with respective division of regions. The regions are divided based on geographical areas/locations and will establish data centers. Based on need and traffic of users, the scale of data centers is depended to facilitate users with low-latencies of servcies.
• Availability Zones (AZ): To prevent the Data centers for the Natural Calamities or any other disasters. The Datacenters are established as sub sections with isolated locations to enhance fault tolerance and disaster recovery management.
• Global Network Infrastructure: AWS ensures the reliability and scalability of services through setting up its own AWS Network Infrastructure globally. It helps in better management of data transmissions for optimized performance and security reliance.

Top AWS Services

In the rapid revolution of Cloud Computing, AWS facilitates with wide variety of services respect to the fields and needs. The following are the top AWS services that are in wide usage:

• Amazon EC2(Elastic Compute Cloud) : It provides the Scalable computing power via cloud allowing the users to run applications and manage the workloads over their remotely.
• Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service ): It offers scalable object Storage as a Service with high durability for storing and retrieving any amount of data.
• AWS Lambda: It is a service in Serverless Architecture with Function as a Service facilitating serverless computing i.e., running the code on response to the events, the background environment management of servers is handled by aws automatically. It helps the developers to completely focus on the logic of code build.
• Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service): This is an aws service that simplifies the management of database providing high available relational databases in the cloud.
• Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): It enables the users to create isolated networks with option of public and private expose within the AWS cloud, providing safe and adaptable configurations of their resources.

To know more about refer the Article – Top 25 AWS Service List

Advantages Of Amazon Web Services

•  AWS allows you to easily scale your resources up or down as your needs change, helping you to save money and ensure that your application always has the resources it needs.
• AWS provides a highly reliable and secure infrastructure, with multiple data centers and a commitment to 99.99% availability for many of its services.
• AWS offers a wide range of services and tools that can be easily combined to build and deploy a variety of applications, making it highly flexible.
•  AWS offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing you to only pay for the resources you actually use and avoid upfront costs and long-term commitments.

Disadvantages Of Amazon Web Services

•  AWS can be complex, with a wide range of services and features that may be difficult to understand and use, especially for new users.
• AWS can be expensive, especially if you have a high-traffic application or need to run multiple services. Additionally, the cost of services can increase over time, so you need to regularly monitor your spending.
• While AWS provides many security features and tools, securing your resources on AWS can still be challenging, and you may need to implement additional security measures to meet your specific requirements.
•  AWS manages many aspects of the infrastructure, which can limit your control over certain parts of your application and environment.

Applications Of AWS

The AWS services are using by both startup and MNC companies as per their usecase. The startup companies are using overcome hardware infrasture cost and applications deployments effectively with cost and performance. Whereas large scale companies are using AWS cloud services for the management of their Infrastructure to completely focus on the development of products widely. The following the Real-world industrial use-cases of AWS services:

• Netflix: The Large streaming gaint using AWS for the storage and scaing of the applications for ensuring seamless content delivery with low latency without interruptions to millions of users globally.
• Airbnb: By utilizing AWS, Airbnb manages the various workloads and provides insurable and expandable infrastructure for its virtual marketplace and lodging offerings.
• NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory: It takes the help of AWS services to handle and analyze large-scale volumes of data related to vital scientific research missions and space exploration.
• Capital One: A financial Company that is utilizing AWS for its security and compliance while delivering innovative banking services to its customers.

AWS Global Infrastructure

The AWS global infrastructure is massive and is divided into geographical regions. The geographical regions are then divided into separate availability zones. While selecting the geographical regions for AWS, three factors come into play

• Optimizing Latency
• Reducing cost
• Government regulations (Some services are not available for some regions)

Each region is divided into at least two availability zones that are physically isolated from each other, which provides business continuity for the infrastructure as in a distributed system. If one zone fails to function, the infrastructure in other availability zones remains operational. The largest region North Virginia (US-East), has six availability zones. These availability zones are connected by high-speed fiber-optic networking.

There are over 100 edge locations distributed all over the globe that are used for the CloudFront (content delivery network). CloudFront can cache frequently used content such as images and videos(live streaming videos also) at edge locations and distribute it to edge locations across the globe for high-speed delivery and low latency for end-users. It also protects from DDOS attacks.

AWS Management Console

The AWS management console is a web-based interface to access AWS. It requires an AWS account and also has a smartphone application for the same purpose. So When you  sign in for first time, you see the console home page where you see all the services provided by AWS. Cost monitoring is also done through the console.

AWS resources can also be accessed through various Software Development Kits (SDKs), which allows the developers to create applications as AWS as its backend. There are SDKs for all the major languages(e.g., JavaScript, Python, Node.js, .Net, PHP, Ruby, Go, C++). There are mobile SDKs for Android, iOS, React Native, Unity, and Xamarin. AWS can also be accessed by making HTTP calls using the AWS-API. AWS also provides a AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) for remotely accessing the AWS and can implement scripts to automate many processes. This Console is also available as an app for Android and iOS. For mobile apps, you can simply download AWS console app. 

AWS Cloud Computing Models

There are three cloud computing models available on AWS.

1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): It is the basic building block of cloud IT. It generally provides access to data storage space, networking features, and computer hardware(virtual or dedicated hardware). It is highly flexible and gives management controls over the IT resources to the developer. For example, VPC, EC2, EBS.
2. Platform as a Service (PaaS): This is a type of service where AWS manages the underlying infrastructure (usually operating system and hardware). This helps the developer to be more efficient as they do not have to worry about undifferentiated heavy lifting required for running the applications such as capacity planning, software maintenance, resource procurement, patching, etc., and focus more on deployment and management of the applications. For example, RDS, EMR, ElasticSearch.
3. Software as a Service(SaaS): It is a complete product that usually runs on a browser. It primarily refers to end-user applications. It is run and managed by the service provider. The end-user only has to worry about the application of the software suitable to its needs. For example, Saleforce.com, Web-based email, Office 365 .

Amazon Web Services – FAQs

What Is AWS Used For?

The purpose of AWS is to provide a variety of services including storage, compute power, databases, and machine learning helping companies and users to build, run, and deploy their applications effectively with optimized performance, and cost-effectiveness.

Is AWS Good For A Career And What’s The Salary?

Yes, A career in AWS Cloud is a great choice. It is a very competitive high-demand one, the one who gets expertise will receive competitive earnings.

Can I Learn AWS For Free, And Is It Easy To Learn?

Yes. AWS offers free-tier accounts for learning and doing practices with some resources with good limit. It is quite great for the beginner to have great practical learnings with implementations.

Does AWS Require Coding Skills?

Even though not familiar with coding skills one can learn and Use Cloud Service. But knowing how to code, particularly in scripting languages helps you to be more productive while using AWS.

Are AWS Certifications Necessary For A Career In Cloud Computing?

Yes, These AWS certifications are quite helpful for both getting exposure and chances of landing a job. It helps improve your career prospects in the competitive field of the cloud.