AWS refers to the Amazon Web Services, an on-demand, metered pay basis evolving cloud computing platform owned by the giant parent company-Amazon. Launched in 2006 from what Amazon.com built as a tool to handle its internal infrastructure, Amazon Web Services is known for being one of the pioneers to introduce a cloud computing service model with an option of scaling, enabling its users to alter the resources as per their subjective requirements and pay according to their usage at the given point of time.
Amazon Web Services have multiple Availability Zones (AZ’s) spread across the world. An Availability Zone basically refers to any particular geographic location that is concentrated with multiple physical data centers.
An area of geographic proximity connected together by low-latency network links forming a collection of Availability Zones is called a Region. Amazon Web Services have a plethora of services, almost more than 100 under their belt. Some of the most prominent service categories falling under the Amazon Web Services include those of Databases, Compute, Application Development, Security and Infrastructure Management.
These services are known for instantly spinning up numerous numbers of servers so as to deliver results much faster. One of the highlighting perks of adopting to the Amazon Web Services is that the user is exempted from the tedious and time-consuming task of planning the IT infrastructure and the servers.
On the contrary, the AWS comes across as a cost-efficient option considering the fact that the users have to pay only for the resources and services that are actually used by them, thus eliminating the prerequisite of long-term commitments. With this cloud, we need not plan for servers and other IT infrastructure which takes up much of time in advance.
Instead, these services can instantly spin up hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and deliver results faster. We pay only for what we use with no up-front expenses and no long-term commitments, which makes AWS cost efficient. It is very important to understand the functions of the Amazon Web Services in order to understand its advantages.
Broadly, the AWS refers to a safe, secure platform providing cloud services;
offering its users with database storage, content delivery, compute power and every possible functionality so as to help the business to grow, expand and upscale speedily.
The Amazon Web Services enables you to do the following things:
- Host dynamic websites by running application and web servers on the cloud.
- Help you to store the files securely on the cloud enabling you to get an access to them from anywhere across the world.
- Using the Content Delivery Network (CDN) so as to send and receive Static and Dynamic files across the world
- Send E-mails in bulk to the customers of the users.
- In order to store information, uses managed databases like Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQL Server. The Amazon Web Services are a great option considering the array of advantages that they have to offer.
Some of the key advantages of the Amazon Web Services are:
• Elasticity and Scalability
The Amazon Web Services are known for their thoroughly efficiently spread global cloud infrastructure. It allows you to scale up or scale down your resources on the basis of the subjective client demand. It allows you to instantly increase or decrease your resources as per the requirements at that particular point of time allowing you to take care of your costs and manage them more effectively.
With this option, you are expected to pay only for the amount of resources that are used by you irrespective of the number of days or hours that you are using them for or the number of servers that you choose to opt for. The concept of elasticity, when looked at in terms of Amazon Web Services, it basically refers to the concept of scaling the computing resources upwards and downwards very easily with very less friction. This feature is the most distinguishing and highlighting feature of the Amazon Web Services.
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• Cost-Effectiveness
Another highlighting feature of the Amazon Web Services is that it offers the users a ‘Pay-as-you-go’ pricing option that is generally low in terms of the costing. Thus, it exempts you from any sort of long-term commitment or instant exorbitant expenses thus enabling the customers to adopt to a cost-friendly service.
The Amazon Web Services do not limit you even when it comes to setting the amount of the storage, the bandwidth or the computing sources. The Amazon Web Services enable you an access to these resources quite once, as and when called for. The cloud makes it easy for the user to respond promptly to the constant changes, large or small.
This enables you to reduce the respective costs enabling you to derive better revenues. Considering the fact that the Amazon Web Services do not demand an all-time commitment from its users, allowing them to discontinue or terminate the relationship according to their own will, or upscale or downscale it as per their demand; this flexibility increases its cost-effectiveness, making it a great option to choose.
Cloud Computing refers to the practice of using a network of network servers on the internet so as to store, manage and process the data, rather than a personal computer or a local server. It refers to an on-demand availability of multiple computer system resources, primarily computing power and data storage.
The term is mainly used to refer to the multiple data centers made available to a number of users across the internet. These clouds may be available to a single organization (which are called as enterprise clouds) or to multiple organizations (which are called as public clouds). Basically, cloud computing refers to anything in particular that involves the delivering of hosted services over the Internet.
These services can be broadly divided into three categories, namely the Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). A cloud service can be differentiated from any other traditional Web Hosting on the basis of certain distinct categories.
These include that-Cloud computing is sold on demand, primarily duration based making it an elastic service.
The above services are fully managed by the service provider. It must be noted that prominent innovations in the concept of
virtualization and computing along with continuous access to high-speed internet have largely contributed in accelerating the interest in cloud computing.
Cloud Computing has become one of the most popular areas of Web Hosting. Various highlighting advantages have contributed to the kind of position and market that cloud computing demands in the industry. The various advantages of cloud computing include:
• Elasticity
The users are allowed to upscale and downscale as and when the computing skills and the demands increase and decrease. Owing to this feature, the users of cloud computing are exempted from the prerequisite to make bulky investments in the local infrastructure of the company, which is dynamic in nature.
• Pay per use
The users are allowed to pay only for the resources that are actually consumed by them.
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• Migration flexibility
Organizations allow for transfer of certain specific workloads to new cloud platforms from the existing ones for better efficiency and cost savings. Amazon Web Services refer to the services that enable an enterprise to automate cloud management tasks including various types of management like the change management, patch management, user access management along with backup, restores and incident management.
According to Amazon, the Managed Amazon Web Services provide their users with a number of benefits. Some of these benefits include:
• Improving your Security and Compliance
The Amazon Web Services are believed to offer their users with a step-by-step guided process in order to help you extend your identity, security and compliance perimeter. These extensions can include the highly critical tasks of Compliance Certification Mapping (HIPAA, GDPR, SOC, NIST, ISO, PCI) and Active Directory Integration.
• Accelerating the Migration to the Cloud
The Amazon Web Services are believed to provide their users with an enterprise-ready operating environment, enabling you to very easily and efficiently migrate production workloads within a shorter period of time span.
The Amazon Managed Web Services takes up the responsibility of operating and managing the environment of your cloud post this migration which can include tasks such as responding to the numerous incidents, analyzing the alerts amongst others, thus enabling your internal resources to keep focusing much more strategic areas of the business, paving way for more productivity and better innovation.
The AWS Solutions are built putting the services from the Amazon Web Services to use. These solutions are designed in a way so as to help you solve problems and build better and faster using the Amazon Web Services platform. All of these AWS Solutions are designed by AWS architects so as to be reliable, secure, cost effective and operationally effective.
Thus, Amazon Web Services are considered to be one of the most widely and broadly adopted cloud computing platform along with being one of the world’s most comprehensive ones. It has gained a well spread follow base, starting from the fastest growing start-ups, leading government agencies and huge enterprises.
Amazon continues to be a pioneer when it comes to the concept of cloud computing and has set up a certain level of standard, making it one of the most efficient Web Solutions provider.
