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Activity 12: What is AWS?

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Monette Nicolas
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6 min read

Introduction

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s leading cloud platform, offering a broad range of computing services that help businesses and developers store, manage, and process data. AWS provides more than 200 fully-featured services, such as computing power, storage, machine learning, and database management, which can be accessed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

AWS is used by millions of customers worldwide, from startups to large enterprises, due to its scalability, flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Whether you are looking to host a simple website or run complex machine learning models, AWS has the tools and infrastructure to support your needs.

Key Services Offered by AWS

AWS offers a wide range of services across various domains. Below are the most commonly used services:

1. Compute Services

These services allow developers to run applications and manage workloads efficiently.

  • Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): EC2 provides resizable virtual servers that can be scaled up or down depending on your needs. You can choose different instance types depending on performance requirements.

  • AWS Lambda: AWS Lambda allows you to run code without provisioning or managing servers. It is a serverless computing service, ideal for event-driven architectures.

2. Storage Services

AWS offers several storage solutions that ensure data security, availability, and scalability.

  • Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service): S3 is a scalable object storage service, allowing you to store and retrieve large amounts of data. It's highly reliable and is often used for backups, static website hosting, and data archiving.

    Figure 2: Amazon S3 Bucket Setup

  • Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store): EBS provides block-level storage volumes for use with EC2 instances. It is useful for workloads requiring high performance, such as databases and applications.

  • Amazon Glacier: Glacier is a low-cost cloud storage service ideal for archiving and long-term backups.

3. Database Services

AWS provides a wide array of database solutions to meet the diverse needs of businesses.

  • Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service): RDS simplifies database setup, operation, and scaling. It supports popular relational databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.

  • Amazon DynamoDB: DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability.

  • Amazon Redshift: Redshift is a data warehousing solution that allows businesses to perform complex queries on large datasets in seconds.

4. Networking Services

AWS networking services ensure that resources are securely connected and efficiently managed across the cloud.

  • Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): VPC allows users to create isolated cloud networks and control traffic between resources.

  • Amazon CloudFront: CloudFront is a content delivery network (CDN) that delivers content to users worldwide with low latency by caching data at edge locations.

  • Elastic Load Balancing (ELB): ELB automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple EC2 instances for fault tolerance and load distribution.

5. Security and Identity Services

AWS has robust security measures in place to protect data and applications.

  • AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management): IAM allows you to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. You can define users, groups, and roles and apply policies to control permissions.

  • AWS Shield: AWS Shield is a managed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS.

  • Amazon Inspector: This is a security assessment service that helps improve the security of applications deployed on AWS by automatically analyzing vulnerabilities.

6. Machine Learning and AI

AWS offers several services for building, training, and deploying machine learning models.

  • Amazon SageMaker: SageMaker provides tools to build, train, and deploy machine learning models at scale.

  • AWS Rekognition: This service provides image and video analysis capabilities, such as face detection, object recognition, and activity tracking.

  • Amazon Polly: Polly converts text into lifelike speech, enabling applications with natural-sounding voice interaction.

7. Developer Tools

AWS provides tools to help developers manage and automate infrastructure.

  • AWS CodeDeploy: Automates the deployment of code to any instance, whether it's Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, or on-premises servers.

  • AWS CodePipeline: A continuous delivery service that automates the build, test, and deployment phases of your release process.

  • AWS CloudFormation: Allows you to create and manage a collection of AWS resources, automating the provisioning and updating process using templates.

8. Analytics and Big Data

AWS supports large-scale data analysis and processing with specialized tools.

  • Amazon Kinesis: Enables real-time data streaming and processing.

  • Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce): Simplifies running big data frameworks such as Hadoop and Apache Spark on AWS.

  • AWS Glue: A fully managed ETL (extract, transform, load) service that prepares data for analytics.

Benefits of AWS

  1. Scalability: AWS services are highly scalable, allowing businesses to easily adjust their resources based on demand. Services like EC2 can automatically scale in and out, ensuring that you only pay for what you use.

  2. Cost-Effective: AWS operates on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which makes it cost-effective for both small and large businesses. You don't need to make heavy upfront investments in hardware or infrastructure.

  3. Global Infrastructure: AWS has a vast global infrastructure, with data centers in multiple regions and availability zones. This ensures high availability and low latency for applications.

  4. Security: AWS places a strong emphasis on security, offering built-in security features such as encryption, DDoS protection, and Identity and Access Management (IAM). It also complies with major international security standards such as ISO 27001 and HIPAA.

  5. Reliability: AWS services are designed to be reliable and durable. Amazon S3, for example, guarantees 99.999999999% durability for stored data. AWS's infrastructure is designed to automatically handle failure, making it one of the most reliable cloud platforms.

  6. Comprehensive Ecosystem: AWS offers a comprehensive ecosystem that covers every aspect of IT, from computing power and storage to machine learning and analytics. This means that you can run virtually any application on AWS, no matter the complexity.

How to Get Started with AWS

Step 1: Create an AWS Account

  • Visit the AWS website and create a new account. You’ll need to provide payment information, but you can start using free-tier services for no cost.

Step 2: Access the AWS Management Console

  • Once your account is set up, you can access the AWS Management Console. This is where you’ll manage and configure all of your services.

Step 3: Launch an EC2 Instance

  • Go to the EC2 dashboard from the console and follow the steps to launch a new instance. You can select from a variety of pre-configured AMIs (Amazon Machine Images) or configure your own instance.

Step 4: Set Up S3 Storage

  • Head to the S3 service from the AWS console to create a new storage bucket. Buckets are used to store objects (files, data, etc.) that can be accessed from anywhere.

AWS Use Cases

1. Hosting Websites

  • AWS provides all the tools you need to host websites and applications. EC2, S3, and Route 53 (DNS management service) allow businesses to host anything from simple static websites to complex web applications.

2. Data Backup and Archiving

  • Many organizations use Amazon S3 and Glacier to store backups and archives. These services provide highly durable, cost-effective storage solutions.

3. Machine Learning and Data Analysis

  • AWS offers comprehensive tools for building and training machine learning models. Services like SageMaker and Glue help businesses analyze vast amounts of data and derive insights.

4. DevOps and Continuous Integration

  • AWS CodePipeline, CodeDeploy, and CloudFormation allow development teams to automate their software development lifecycle, making deployments faster and less error-prone.

5. Disaster Recovery

  • AWS provides robust disaster recovery options by enabling businesses to replicate workloads across multiple regions and quickly recover in case of an outage.

Resources

https://www.techtarget.com/searchaws/definition/Amazon-Web-Services

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/