AWS Services

Introduction to AWS

Amazon web service is a platform that offers flexible, reliable, scalable, easy-to-use and cost-effective cloud computing solutions. AWS offers a large number of services and in this post we list down most of the AWS Services, with their overview.

AWS is a comprehensive, easy to use computing platform offered by Amazon. The platform is developed with a combination of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and packaged software as a service (SaaS) offerings. It offers a wide range of different business purpose global cloud-based products. The products include storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, development tools, enterprise applications, with a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

AWS Compute Services

Here, are Cloud Compute Services offered by Amazon:

1. EC2(Elastic Compute Cloud)

   EC2 is a virtual machine in the cloud on which you have OS level control. You can run this cloud server whenever you want. It is a web service that provides resizeable computing capacity—literally, servers in Amazon’s data centers—that you use to build and host your software systems.

2. LightSail

   Amazon Lightsail is the easiest way to get started with AWS for developers who just need virtual private servers. It includes everything you need to launch your project quickly – a virtual machine, SSD-based storage, data transfer, DNS management, and a static IP – for a low, predictable price. This cloud computing tool automatically deploys and manages the computer, storage, and networking capabilities required to run your applications.

3. ElasticBeanstalk

   With AWS Elastic Beanstalk, you can quickly deploy and manage applications in the AWS Cloud without worrying about the infrastructure that runs those applications. AWS Elastic Beanstalk reduces management complexity without restricting choice or control. You simply upload your application, and AWS Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, scaling, and application health monitoring.

4. AWS Lambda

   With AWS Lambda, you can run code without provisioning or managing servers. The tool is a big cost saver for you as you to pay only when your functions execute. You can set up your code to automatically trigger from other AWS services or call it directly from any web or mobile app.

AWS Migration Services

Migration services used to transfer data physically between your data center and AWS.

1. DMS (Database Migration Service) 

   AWS Database Migration Service can be used to migrate on-site databases to AWS. It helps you to migrate from one type of database to another — for example, Oracle to MySQL.

2. SMS (Server Migration Service)

   AWS Server Migration Service (AWS SMS) combines data collection tools with automated server replication to speed the migration of on-premises servers to AWS. SMS migration services allows you to migrate on-site servers to AWS easily and quickly.

3. Snowball

   AWS Snowball is a service for customers who want to transport terabytes or petabytes of data to and from AWS, or who want to access the storage and compute power of the AWS Cloud locally and cost effectively in places where connecting to the internet might not be an option.

Storage

1. Amazon Glacier

   Amazon Simple Storage Service Glacier (Amazon S3 Glacier) is a storage service optimized for infrequently used data, or “cold data.” The service provides durable and extremely low-cost storage with security features for data archiving and backup.

2. Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)

   Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is a web service that provides block level storage volumes for use with EC2 instances. EBS volumes are highly available and reliable storage volumes that can be attached to any running instance and used like a hard drive. Amazon Elastic Block Store volumes are network-attached and remain independent from the life of an instance.

3. AWS Storage Gateway

   This AWS service is connecting on-premises software applications with cloud-based storage. It offers secure integration between the company’s on-premises and AWS’s storage.

Security Services

1. IAM (Identity and Access Management)

   AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service for securely controlling access to AWS services. With IAM, you can centrally manage users, security credentials such as access keys, and permissions that control which AWS resources users and applications can access.

2. WAF (Web Application Firewall)

   AWS WAF is a web application firewall that lets you monitor web requests that are forwarded to Amazon CloudFront distributions or an Application Load Balancer. You can also use AWS WAF to block or allow requests based on conditions that you specify, such as the IP addresses that requests originate from or values in the requests.

3. Cloud Directory

    This service allows you to create flexible, cloud-native directories for managing hierarchies of data along multiple dimensions.

4. KMS (Key Management Service) 

   AWS Key Management Service (KMS) is an encryption and key management service scaled for the cloud. This security service helps you to create and control the encryption keys which allows you to encrypt your data.

5. Organizations 

   You can create groups of AWS accounts using this service to manage security and automation settings.

Database Services

1. Amazon RDS 

   Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a web service that makes it easier to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient, resizable capacity for an industry-standard relational database and manages common database administration tasks.

2. Amazon DynamoDB 

   Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. You can use Amazon DynamoDB to create a database table that can store and retrieve any amount of data, and serve any level of request traffic.

3. Amazon ElastiCache 

   Amazon ElastiCache makes it easy to set up, manage, and scale distributed in-memory cache environments in the AWS Cloud. It provides a high performance, resizable, and cost-effective in-memory cache, while removing complexity associated with deploying and managing a distributed cache environment.

4. Neptune 

   Amazon Neptune is a fast, reliable, fully managed graph database service that makes it easy to build and run applications that work with highly connected datasets.

5. Amazon RedShift

   Amazon Redshift is a fast, fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service that makes it simple and cost-effective to efficiently analyze all your data using your existing business intelligence tools.

Management Services  

1. CloudWatch 

   Amazon CloudWatch provides a reliable, scalable, and flexible monitoring solution that you can start using within minutes. You no longer need to set up, manage, and scale your own monitoring systems and infrastructure. It also triggers alarms depending on various metrics.

2. CloudFormation 

   It is a way of turning infrastructure into the cloud. You can use templates for providing a whole production environment in minutes.

3. CloudTrail

   It offers an easy method of auditing AWS resources. This service records AWS API calls and send backlog files to you.

4. OpsWorks 

   The service allows you to automated Chef/Puppet deployments on AWS environment.

5. Config 

   This AWS service monitors your environment. The tool sends alerts about changes when you break certain defined configurations.

6. Service Catalog   

    This service helps large enterprises to authorize which services user will be used and which won’t.

7. AWS Auto Scaling

   The service allows you to automatically scale your resources up and down based on given CloudWatch metrics.

8. Systems Manager   

    This AWS service allows you to group your resources. It allows you to identify issues and act on them.

9. Managed Services   

   It offers management of your AWS infrastructure which allows you to focus on your applications.

Internet of Things

1. IoT Core 

   It is a managed cloud AWS service. The service allows connected devices like cars, light bulbs, sensor grids, to securely interact with cloud applications and other devices.

2. IoT Device Management

    It allows you to manage your IoT devices at any scale.

3. IoT Analytics   

   This AWS IoT service is helpful to perform analysis on data collected by your IoT devices.

4. Amazon Free RTOS 

   This real-time operating system for micro-controllers helps you to connect IoT devices in the local server or into the cloud.

Business Productivity

1. Alexa for Business

   It empowers your organization with voice, using Alexa. It will help you to build custom voice skills for your organization.

2. Chime

   Can be used for online meeting and video conferencing.

3. WorkDocs 

   Helps to store documents in the cloud

4. WorkMail 

   Allows you to send and receive business emails.

Artificial Intelligence

1. Lex 

   Lex tool helps you to build chat bots.

2. Polly

   It is AWS’s text-to-speech service allows you to create audio versions of your notes.

3. Rekognition

   It is AWS’s face recognition service. This AWS service helps you to recognize faces and object in images and videos.

4. SageMaker 

   Sagemaker allows you to build, train, and deploy machine learning models at any scale.

5. Transcribe 

   It is AWS’s speech-to-text service that offers high-quality and affordable transcriptions.

6. Translate

   It is a very similar tool to Google Translate which allows you to translate text in one language to another.

Applications of AWS services

Amazon Web services are widely used for various computing purposes like:

• Web site hosting
• Application hosting/SaaS hosting
• Media Sharing (Image/ Video)
• Mobile and Social Applications
• Content delivery and Media Distribution
• Storage, backup, and disaster recovery
• Development and test environments
• Academic Computing
• Search Engines
• Social Networking

Advantages of AWS

Following are the pros of using AWS services:

• AWS allows organizations to use the already familiar programming models, operating systems, databases, and architectures.
• It is a cost-effective service that allows you to pay only for what you use, without any up-front or long-term commitments.
• You will not require to spend money on running and maintaining data centres.
• Offers fast deployments
• You can easily add or remove capacity.
• You are allowed cloud access quickly with limitless capacity.
• Total Cost of Ownership is very low compared to any private/dedicated servers.
• Offers Centralized Billing and management
• Offers Hybrid Capabilities
• Allows you to deploy your application in multiple regions around the world with just a few clicks.

Disadvantages of AWS

• If you need more immediate or intensive assistance, you’ll have to opt for paid support packages.
• Amazon Web Services may have some common cloud computing issues when you move to a cloud. For example, downtime, limited control, and backup protection.
• AWS sets default limits on resources which differ from region to region. These resources consist of images, volumes, and snapshots.
• Hardware-level changes happen to your application which may not offer the best performance and usage of your applications.