Amazon Web Services or AWS offers many cloud computing services for businesses. Some major AWS services include Amazon EC2 for virtual servers, S3 for storage, Lambda for code processing, and RDS for databases in the cloud. AWS makes it easy for users to deploy and scale applications using these services. An AWS DevOps Training can help users learn how to use compute, storage, databases, and other tools on AWS. It is useful for developers and system administrators to take an AWS Course to understand how to build cloud applications and manage infrastructure and resources on AWS. The course covers services like EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, and more to get started with AWS.
Introduction
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the largest and most popular cloud computing platform in the world. It offers a wide range of cloud computing services that help businesses migrate their infrastructure and applications to the cloud. This blog post provides an overview of the key AWS cloud computing services and compares their features and pricing.
Compute Services
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) EC2 is AWS’s flagship compute service that allows users to launch virtual servers called instances in AWS data centers. EC2 offers a variety of instance types optimized for different use cases like compute-intensive or memory-intensive applications. Users can choose from On-Demand Instances (pay-as-you-go), Reserved Instances (upfront payment for long-term usage), and Spot Instances (use unused EC2 capacity at steep discounts). EC2 provides high availability and scalability.
Elastic Container Service (ECS) ECS allows users to run and manage Docker containers on EC2 instances. It provides clustering of instances and scheduling of containers across the cluster. ECS integrates with other AWS services like load balancers, auto scaling, and storage. It offers high scalability and availability for containerized applications.
Elastic Beanstalk Elastic Beanstalk is a PaaS service that automates the deployment and management of applications on EC2 instances. It handles capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto-scaling, and application health monitoring. Users just upload their code and Elastic Beanstalk takes care of deploying and scaling it across EC2 instances.
Lambda Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs code in response to events and automatically manages the compute resources. It is useful for building event-driven and real-time applications. Users pay only for the compute time consumed. Lambda integrates with many AWS services and third party tools.
Storage Services
Simple Storage Service (S3) S3 is AWS’s object storage service for storing and retrieving any amount of data from anywhere on the Internet. It offers extremely durable storage, high throughput, low latency and virtually unlimited scalability. S3 is optimized for storing and retrieving any amount of data from anywhere on the Internet.
Elastic Block Store (EBS) EBS provides block-level storage volumes for use with EC2 instances. It offers storage volumes that can be attached to EC2 instances as hard disks. EBS volumes provide low latency, high random I/O performance and are available in different volume types like SSD and HDD. EBS volumes can be created, attached, detached, and deleted on demand.
Database Services
Relational Database Service (RDS) RDS provides relational database services like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database and SQL Server in the cloud. It handles database provisioning, operations, backups and scaling seamlessly. RDS automates the time-consuming tasks of database management like patching, backups, failure recovery etc. Users can focus on core business logic.
DynamoDB DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service with fast and predictable performance. It delivers single-digit millisecond performance at any scale. DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that delivers extremely fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. It is a good fit for mobile, web, gaming and IoT applications that need low-latency data access at any scale.
ElastiCache ElastiCache is an in-memory data store and cache service. It supports Redis and Memcached protocols to provide fast in-memory caching for applications. ElastiCache improves application performance by caching hot items in memory for low latency access. It integrates with other AWS services like EC2, RDS and DynamoDB.
Networking Services
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) VPC allows users to launch AWS resources like EC2 instances into a virtual network that they define. It provides users control over their virtual networking environment, including selection of their own IP address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways. VPC is essential for setting up hybrid IT environments and connecting on-premises networks to AWS.
Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) ELB automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple EC2 instances. It enables high availability and scalability. ELB supports load balancing of HTTP/HTTPS and TCP traffic. It provides advanced routing and health checking features. ELB integrates with Auto Scaling to ensure application availability during traffic spikes or server failures.
Route 53 Route 53 is a highly available and scalable cloud Domain Name System (DNS) web service. It translates domain names like http://www.example.com/ into IP addresses for fast and secure routing of users to applications. Route 53 offers health checking to route traffic to healthy endpoints and integrates with other AWS services like ELB, EC2 and S3.
Security, Identity & Compliance
Identity and Access Management (IAM) IAM enables fine-grained access control to AWS services and resources. It allows creation of users, groups and roles within AWS and manage permissions for each of them. IAM helps apply the principle of least privilege and enables secure access to AWS for both humans and applications.
Certificate Manager Certificate Manager is a service to provision, manage, and deploy SSL/TLS certificates for use with AWS services and internal connections of applications within AWS. It removes the manual process of purchasing, uploading and renewing SSL certificates.
CloudTrail CloudTrail creates logs of all API calls and CLI commands within an AWS account. It enables governance, compliance and operational auditing of account activities. CloudTrail logs can be delivered to CloudWatch Logs, S3 or SNS for centralized monitoring and forensics.
CloudWatch CloudWatch monitors AWS resources and applications in real-time. It collects and tracks metrics, collects and monitors log files, sets alarms and automatically reacts to changes in AWS resources. CloudWatch enables visibility into resource utilization, application performance and operational health.
Pricing Comparison
The pricing models for AWS services vary based on usage. Here is a brief comparison:
- EC2: Pay per hour for On-Demand instances. Savings with Reserved Instances (up to 75%). Spot Instances offer 90% discount but instances can be terminated with 2 minutes notice.
- Lambda: Pay per 100ms of compute time used. First 1M requests/month and 400,000 GB-seconds of compute are free each month.
- S3: Pay for storage usage and data transfer. First 5GB of storage and first 1GB of data transfer out are free each month.
- EBS: Pay for provisioned volume storage. Standard IOPS SSD is most cost-effective.
- RDS: Pay for instance classes, storage, and data transfer. Savings with Reserved Instances.
- DynamoDB: Pay per request and for data storage. Free tier of 25GB storage and 25 million requests.
- ElastiCache: Pay per node hour for Redis or Memcached clusters. Free tier of 750 hours per month.
- VPC: No additional charge for using VPC itself. Pay for associated AWS resources like EC2, EBS, EIP etc.
- ELB: Pay per load balancer hour and per GB of data processed. Free tier of 20GB data processed per month.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AWS provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services across compute, storage, databases, networking, security, analytics and more. It offers flexibility, scalability and pay-as-you-go pricing models. AWS helps businesses optimize costs, improve agility and focus on innovation rather than infrastructure management. The key services discussed in this blog post are essential building blocks for migrating and running applications in the AWS cloud.
