Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a range of critical IT infrastructure services to businesses across the globe. These services are cloud based- that is, they are delivered over the internet through AWS’ servers. Essentially, businesses sign up with AWS to get access to their computing power, web services and some very useful business applications. This is a cheaper option in the long run, because they don’t have to purchase their own hardware or pay for monthly hardware maintenance. AWS takes care of all that at their end. Also, with AWS, they can scale the operation up or down, as demand dictates. Businesses only have to pay for the services they have opted for.
AWS Products and Services Overview
AWS has a vast range of products and business solutions on offer. Businesses (or individuals) can sign up with AWS for a free 12 month limited trial or just pay as they go. Businesses that are using a free account have access to fewer AWS services than businesses that pay for their AWS usage. A business can also use over 700 applications (free and paid) present in the AWS marketplace.
The free AWS account isn’t suitable for large businesses because of its limited capabilities, but opting for the free account is a good way to get a feel for AWS.
AWS Solutions
AWS offers a useful set of solutions that allow the building and running of fully-fledged businesses. With AWS, business owners can build their own websites, backup and store business information, access off-site archives, build databases, build e-commerce capabilities and get access to hosted applications and mobile services.
To put it simply, AWS has everything a business needs to function. It also has a set of tools that help businesses to function better- which is another reason why many businesses opt to use AWS over running their own server. Big Data is a set of analytic tools offered by AWS, for example, that make it possible for business owners to improve their business with actionable insights (provided by AWS). Disaster Recovery solutions is data backup solution offered by AWS. AWS creates multiple copies of important business data and stores it offsite securely. If a business system crashes, business owners can access this data quickly and get the system back online.
AWS’s solutions are suitable for a variety of business. It has development tools that can be used by developers to build and distribute games, for example. Media and entertainment companies can use some custom tools to store, process and distribute movies and songs. Research departments can use AWS to manage, share and archive science data. AWS offers tools for Digital Marketing companies to allow them to better develop and deliver their content.
Businesses that have opted to use AWS will, of course, need a reliable internet connection. A bad internet connection could spell disaster for a business. Also, the internet connection has to be fast and permit transfer of large volumes of data. It also has to be secure – an ordinary internet connection is open to hacking. Because of all these factors, some businesses opt to sign up for an AWS Gateway, instead of relying on their regular internet connection. An AWS Gateway is a dedicated line that connects directly to AWS’ servers. This speeds up transfer of data (there are no intermediary servers), reduces latency and makes for a much more reliable and secure connection. It also speeds up certain business processes.
AWS Products
AWS has a very large number of products businesses can take advantage of. Some of the basic products it offers include computing (processing power), storage services like Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier, database products like Amazon Dynamo DB and Amazon RDS, networking services like Amazon VPC, data processing
and analytics services like Amazon EMR, application services like Amazon AppStream, mobile services and AWS support services. These products can be accessed for an hourly, daily or monthly fee, or on a pay-per-use basis.
Conclusion…
All in all, AWS is perfect for businesses or organizations looking to reduce IT costs or reduce the time they spend on IT operations. AWS, in addition, can help these organizations automate many business processes. AWS, with its data analytics and processing services, can also help the organization improve in various ways.
