Amazon Web Services: Definition, How It Works, Products, Benefits, and Disadvantages

AWS is a comprehensive, Amazon-based cloud computing platform that offers a variety of services to help organizations build and scale their architecture on the cloud. The services are hosted in physical data centers located strategically around the world. 

Core AWS services include Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for computing power, Simple Storage Service (S3) for data storage, AWS Lambda for serverless computing and more. AWS comes with all the traditional benefits of cloud computing, including scalability, elasticity and increased performance, as well as unique benefits such as a large pool of expertise, high reliability and a global network of data centers.

What Is AWS (Amazon Web Services)?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon’s cloud computing service. It is the most popular cloud service provider in the world and offers a wide array of cloud computing services over the internet. AWS gives users access to resources without having to purchase physical hardware or manage complex infrastructure.

AWS offers a wide array of cloud services such as compute, storage, networking and more that serve a broad range of needs, from hosting a simple website to carrying out complex computations on the cloud. The environment’s robust and reliable nature has made it a favorite among many.

What Is the History of AWS?

The idea for AWS emerged in 2003. Amazon was running its e-commerce service and had infrastructure that provided developers with APIs to integrate with its e-commerce platform. As Amazon ran its e-commerce architecture, the company realized it had established a highly effective and efficient infrastructure that it could offer to the public.

In March 2006, AWS launched its first public service, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS). Shortly after followed the launch of EC2 and Amazon S3 in August of the same year. Over the years, AWS has continued to innovate with architecture development, making it the infrastructure giant it is today.

What is AWS? History of Amazon’s Cash Cow [2000 to 2024]

How Does AWS Work?

AWS has numerous data centers around the world that hold data for AWS customers and the physical servers that run AWS services. A high-speed fiber network interconnects the data centers and provides a fast and reliable network to users. AWS collaborates with organizations in various countries via the AWS partner network to develop solutions for its clients. 

What Is an AWS Region?

An AWS region is a geographical area that contains AWS data centers holding AWS resources. Regions are made up of at least three availability zones. Each region operates independently and is completely isolated from all other AWS regions.

How Many Regions Does AWS Have?

As at April 2024, AWS had 33 active regions, including Northern Virginia (us-east-1), Oregon (us-west-2), Mumbai (ap-south-1), Tokyo (ap-northeast-1), Cape Town (af-south-1), Ireland (eu-west-1) and Bahrain (me-south-1), among others. The regions span across North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. 

You can take a look at the current AWS regions on the AWS Global Infrastructure map, which illustrates the AWS global network.

What Products or Services Does AWS Offer?

AWS offers a variety of products and services that are grouped into various categories, such as compute, storage, networking, content delivery, analytics, machine learning, AI, security, Internet of Things, management, governance, migration and transfer. Common AWS services include EC2, S3, VPC, IAM and CloudWatch.

Below, we discuss the various product categories and highlight the main features and products. 

Compute

The term “compute” entails the use of concepts related to software computation, such as processing power and memory. Compute forms one of the core parts of cloud computing technology.

On the AWS platform, you can specify the computing power and memory for your application, which are determined by the number of CPUs and bytes, respectively. You can then get a virtual AWS server that meets your specifications.

The compute category includes resources such as EC2, ECS and AWS Lambda. The compute service you use will be based on factors such as the application’s requirements, the compute power demand and code size, the operating system and your software development needs.

Storage

Storage products and services allow AWS clients to store their data for high durability and availability. The main storage services include Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) for block storage, EFS for network file systems, and S3 for object storage and as a foundation for data lakes.

The storage service you use will be based on factors such as the type of data being stored, how frequently you will access it, what the data is used for and network accessibility. AWS storage services are highly reliable and are designed with 99.999999999% durability.

Database

AWS database storage services allow customers to host database applications such as a provision to host game data. AWS offers solutions for relational databases and NoSQL databases. 

Relational database services store data in a table format and include Amazon Aurora, Redshift and Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service). RDS offers six database options, namely Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server and Aurora.

NoSQL databases are more suitable for high performance and dynamic scalability. They store data in a key value format. Examples of NoSQL databases include DynamoDB, DocumentDB, Amazon Neptune and Amazon Elasticache.

Networking and Content Delivery

Networking and content delivery services connect the data to its users, create a virtualized environment to run applications and aid with interconnectivity features such as route table configuration. 

Examples of networking services include Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Route 53 and AWS Direct Connect. Content delivery services enhance users’ data accessibility in the cloud. Examples of content delivery services include Amazon CloudFront and S3 Transfer Accelerator. 

Analytics

Analytics services help businesses with big data management derive insights from their data efficiently and at scale. They help organizations collect, store, process, analyze, visualize and stream data from various sources to aid with decision-making. Examples of analytics services include Amazon Kinesis, Amazon QuickSight and AWS Glue. 

Machine Learning and AI

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) services give developers and data scientists the ability to build, train and deploy machine learning models and AI applications quickly and at scale. The main services under machine learning and AI are Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Rekognition, Amazon Polly, Amazon BedRock and Amazon PartyRock.

Security, Identity and Compliance

Security, identity and compliance resources consist of data security tools and cloud security tools that help users protect their data, control access management using Amazon Cloud Directory and ensure compliance with various regulatory standards.

Examples of AWS security tools include AWS IAM, AWS KMS, Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Config and Amazon Macie.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT resources help users connect devices to the cloud, collect data from those devices, analyze the data and build scalable IoT solutions. Example services include AWS IoT Core, AWS IoT Greengrass, AWS IoT Core, AWS IoT Events, AWS IoT Device Management and AWS IoT Analytics.

Management and Governance

Management and governance services facilitate visibility, control and automation across AWS infrastructure. Examples of AWS management tools include AWS CloudWatch, AWS Systems Manager, AWS Organizations (comprising multiple AWS accounts), AWS Config and AWS Trusted Advisor.

Migration and Transfer

Migration and transfer services help facilitate a seamless migration from on-premises architecture to the AWS cloud, and help move data in hybrid cloud AWS environments to enhance data backup.

Examples AWS migration services include AWS Database Migration Service, AWS Datasync, AWS Storage Gateway, AWS Outposts and AWS Snow Family, including AWS Snowball.

What Other Product Categories Does AWS Have?

Additional AWS product categories include application integration (SQS and SNS), blockchain (Amazon Managed Blockchain), business applications (Amazon Chime), cloud financial management (Cost Explorer), and containers (ECS and EKS).

The developer tools category includes services such as AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodeDeploy. End-user computing contains services such as WorkSpaces and AppStream. Front-end web and mobile services include Amplify and API Gateway. Media services include Elemental MediaConvert and Amazon Interactive Video Service, among others.

The quantum technologies category comprises services such as Amazon Bracket and Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab. Robotics services include AWS RoboMaker, and the satellite category includes services such as AWS Ground Station.

How to Use Amazon Web Services

Using Amazon Web Services entails creating an AWS account, accessing the AWS console, launching the desired services, configuring the security settings, managing your resources and monitoring usage. The steps for using Amazon Web Services are described below.

1. Create an AWS account on the AWS website by providing an email and adding your billing information.
2. Log in to your AWS account using the email and password from step one.
3. Launch your desired resources. Set the region where you want to deploy your resources, search for the services you want to deploy (for example, S3, EC2 and RDS) and deploy them as needed.
4. Set up security policies. Create IAM roles and security groups, and modify the network access control lists to ensure your resources are adequately protected from potential cyber threats.
5. Manage your resources. Make use of the AWS tools to monitor and scale your architecture.
6. Monitor your usage. Take note of your usage and cost statistics to assist with cost optimization and improving performance.

What Are the Use Cases of AWS?

Amazon Web Services use cases include hosting application environments, storing data, scaling architecture, supporting IoT applications, managing servers and implementing serverless computing. 

• Hosting application environments: AWS offers a platform where you can host web applications based on any operating system either on EC2 or on managed infrastructure such as AWS Amplify or AWS Elastic BeanStalk.
• Data storage: Storage resources such as S3 offer unlimited data storage.
• Scaling architecture: AWS offers on-demand cloud computing resources that can automatically scale in or out depending on your needs.
• Supporting IoT applications: AWS offers a platform to easily connect IoT devices, collect data and analyze it seamlessly as it streams in from IoT devices. This makes it easy to run several IoT applications under one roof.
• Implementing serverless computing: When an application runs after specific events, you can use AWS to implement a serverless architecture, such as Lambda functions with triggers to save money, as you will only be charged when the applications run.

What Is AWS’ Pricing?

AWS’ pricing follows the pay-as-you-go pricing model: You are charged for the resources you use without any long-term commitments or upfront costs. AWS also provides savings plans through which you can reserve instances for one year or three years, which is convenient for those with predictable workloads.

There’s also a free tier that offers limited AWS resources for new customers. This enables new customers to experiment with cloud architecture at no cost. Free users who move above the free-tier thresholds or use resources not offered in the free tier will incur costs for those services at the on-demand rate.

What Are the Benefits of AWS?

The benefits of AWS include its cost-effectiveness, scalability, global reach, agility and reliability. 

• Cost-effectiveness: AWS offers a pay-as-you-go model where you only pay for what you use on the cloud, thus trading fixed expenses for variable expenses.
• Scalability: AWS infrastructure can scale in or out based on demand. This enhances the infrastructure’s performance and cost-efficiency.
• Global reach: AWS allows customers to deploy applications in multiple regions globally in just a few minutes.
• Agility: New resources are just one click away. This greatly decreases the production time necessary to make resources available to developers.
• Reliability: AWS uses multiple data centers with built-in redundancy, such as multi-AZ deployments, to increase the availability, reliability and durability of applications and data.

What Are the Disadvantages of AWS?

The disadvantages of AWS include its dependency on the internet, security concerns, downtime and limited control.

• Dependency on the internet: AWS services run in the cloud and are accessed via the internet, which can be affected by poor connectivity.
• Security concerns: Being a cloud service, AWS services can be susceptible to cyberattacks, such as Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack, account hijacking and user account compromise.
• Downtime: Despite the high availability of AWS services, they can also experience downtime, which could disrupt operations. However, AWS promises 99.99% uptime; In the event they don’t meet the SLA for a given month, the user is eligible for credits.
• Limited control: Users have limited control over the underlying infrastructure of the resources they use in the cloud, which could impact performance and customization.

Who Are the Biggest AWS Customers?

According to Spacelift, some of AWS’ biggest clients in 2023 included Sony, Adobe, Facebook, Johnson & Johnson and 3M. Sony spends approximately $11 million on EC2 monthly, Adobe $7.5 million, Facebook $5.6 million, Johnson & Johnson $5 million and 3M $5 million.

AWS has more than 1 million active users, with enterprise-scale customers comprising about 10% of users. In 2023, AWS’ revenue was estimated to be about $90.76 billion — 13% higher than its $80.10 billion revenue in 2022.

Who Are AWS’ Competitors?

The main competitors of AWS are Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, IBM Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Oracle Cloud and OVH Cloud.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud-based service. It is the second most popular cloud computing platform after AWS, and its market share has been increasing over the years. Azure offers a variety of services comparable to those of AWS, with competitive pricing models. Azure sets itself apart with its integration with Microsoft products like Office 365 and Windows Server.

Google Cloud

Google provides infrastructure services to its clients through Google Cloud. Google Cloud offers a variety of cloud computing services at very competitive prices compared to AWS. It has the third largest market share after AWS and Azure.

DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean provides simple cloud services and mostly targets startups and small firms. It offers far fewer services than AWS but focuses on crucial ones such as virtual servers and databases. Cost-conscious clients appreciate DigitalOcean’s well-defined and well-structured pricing model, which is less complex than AWS’.

IBM Cloud

IBM cloud offers a wide variety of cloud computing services with competitive pricing models, such as pay-as-you-go, reserved instances and discounts for long-term commitments. However, AWS offers more services, has a more extensive ecosystem and commands a far larger market share than IBM Cloud. 

Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud offers a wide array of AWS services at competitive prices to AWS via its pay-as-you-go and subscription pricing models. Alibaba Cloud provides services for diverse clients. Though AWS commands a far larger market share than Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba has been expanding its reach, especially in the Asian market.

Oracle Cloud

Oracle Cloud offers a wide range of cloud computing services targeting businesses of all sizes. It uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model and discount models for reserved instances. Oracle focuses on providing end-to-end solutions, particularly for businesses in finance and telecommunications. 

OVH Cloud

OVH Cloud is a leading European cloud provider, with its headquarters in France. It provides a comprehensive set of cloud computing services such as compute, storage and databases with pay-as-you-go pricing models. 

Though AWS commands a far larger market share, OVH continues to expand — especially within Europe, where it differentiates itself by offering GDPR-compliant solutions and an emphasis on data privacy and security.

Final Thoughts

We hope you now have a solid understanding of AWS and how it works, the various service categories it offers and its competitors in the cloud computing industry.

What are your thoughts on using AWS services for your architecture? Would you use AWS resources for your cloud computing needs? What else would you like to learn about AWS? Let us know in the comments below. Thank you for reading our article.

FAQ: AWS

• What Exactly Is AWS Used For?

  AWS is used to build cloud computing infrastructure to cater to various organizational needs, such as compute, storage, databases, networking, machine learning, security, analytics and more.

• What Is AWS in Basic Terms?

  AWS, which stands for Amazon Web Services, is an Amazon division that provides cloud computing services to users over the internet.

• How Hard Is AWS for Beginners?

  AWS is easy for beginners to figure out, given the numerous online resources that facilitate learning. The free tier also provides an avenue for beginners to try out AWS’ resources at no cost.

FAQ

• What Is AWS in Simple Terms?

  AWS stands for “Amazon Web Services” and it’s a big-tent cloud platform that offers companies a cost-effective way to create, host and maintain their entire web presence. The service includes a number of cloud services and tools, including cloud file storage capabilities, remote cloud computing via virtual machines and software development tools. The best part is you only pay for what you use.

• What Is AWS Used For?

  A better question would be: “What isn’t AWS used for?” Using AWS, you can create a website, host it, create an e-commerce storefront, build web applications – and the list goes on.

• What Are the Benefits of AWS?

  The main benefit of AWS is that it offers an all-in-one solution for companies’ cloud needs, with a comprehensive suite of cloud services. It packages all of this in a low-cost infrastructure-as-a-service (or IaaS) model that gives your business the agility it needs to gain a competitive edge. Plus, its worldwide network of data centers guarantees reliable speeds.