AWS Beginner Guide

The Benefits of Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) are a variety of cloud-based services capable of hosting a wide variety of applications and solutions for rental.  All services provided are scalable, meaning anyone can use AWS whether they are a mere startup or an established online company with heavy traffic.  There are no contracts to sign under AWS and there’s no minimum entry fee for using any of these services beyond what needs to be paid on an hourly basis.  The services are also incredibly flexible and capable of working with different operating systems, programming languages, and database types.

If security or safety of the data is the bigger concern, AWS does have that covered.  AWS is built on a global network with multiple redundancies ensuring that if one part of the network goes down from maintenance or an accident, data will not be lost.  Amazon is partnered with a number of technicians and specialists experienced with working on AWS infrastructure.  The security is top-notch with IAM tracking, an integral firewall, options for multi-factor authentication and encryption, and security experts ready to take emergency calls any day of the week.

Services to Offer

AWS’ services cover a wide variety of functions such as AI, blockchain, and analytical calculations.  Some of the biggest tools often used for solutions are:

Amazon EC2

Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) are the virtual servers that run applications on the AWS cloud.  EC2 instances can be configured with a variety of CPUs, memory capacity, and network access for whatever the intended workload is.  Instances typically come automatically configured using Amazon Machine Images (AMI) to best suit what the user needs.  If not, the AMI can be manually configured.

Once the configurations are set, the EC2 instance is ready for action.  There are a few popular ways configured EC2 instances are used, being:

• Compute optimized: Best suited for high-request rates, needing higher-end processing capabilities.
• Memory optimized: Instances with the most efficient memory cost.
• Storage optimized: Utilizing the greater efficiency of an SSD, these instances can store and retrieve data faster for high-volume memory requests.

For more on EC2, check out our article here.

Amazon Lightsail

Lightsail is a basic cloud hosting framework designed for easy setup.  It also automatically equips common web applications such as WordPress and Magento to save on otherwise dull tasks of standard startup.  Additionally, Lightsail is compatible with Windows servers and Linux distros, providing continued usability to users who might need more complex solutions.  It seamlessly integrates with existing websites and is readily affordable at just $3.50 a month for 512MB RAM, 1 CPU core, 20GB storage and 1TB of monthly transfer or $20 a month for 4GB RAM, 2 CPU core, 80GB storage and 4TB transfer setup.

AWS Lambda

Lambda is a more dedicated computing medium that allows for running any segment of code without having to maintain servers.  The main intention is to allow users to continuously develop their applications without having to worry about infrastructure maintenance.  It scales automatically and processes anywhere between a few to a thousand processes per day, making it the ideal platform to run applications on AWS.  Along with being able to self-optimize, it comes with the feature of being able to set up the function to execute automatically under the right circumstances.

The main downside to Lambda is the limitations regarding customizing language run-time or operating system, and there’s no option to log into compute instances.  Lambda is meant to be self-administering, including monitoring fleet health, deploying code, and administering security updates.  While it isn’t necessarily a downside, there are only so many languages that Lambda is compatible with aside from popular languages such as Node.js and Python.  For more details on Lambda’s functionality, our article on it can be found here.

Tools of AWS

Amazon Web Services sports a variety of utilities designed to augment the application development process:

Analytics and Data

Insight to what customers do on a website is critical information, especially for understanding how to increase performance or interaction.  What AWS offers is real-time tracking of interactions on a website and analysis of what can be gleaned from customer behaviors.  It provides visualizations to better understand the bigger picture.

Artifical Intelligence

Problems are complex in nature.  Finding answers with what limitations there are is a greater issue.  Amazon has a variety of in-house options to use for deriving solutions, such as SageMaker for quickly building and training models using popular open-source frameworks.  If users aren’t interested in training their own model, there are several pre-trained options available and experts who can provide oversight and advice.

Internet of Things

There are billions of devices that now populate our world and manage everything from banking to manufacturing.  That’s a significant portion of untapped data just floating around with ample problems to resolve.  AWS’ Internet of Things (IoT) allows users to seamlessly build new solutions on devices, providing simple but comprehensive functionality.  Just for safe measure, there’s several preventative and security alert features that come with the package that can work with any scale of project.

A Bit Much to Take In?

At AllCode, we have had ample experience with AWS and have several certified specialists who can provide oversight in the development of applications using AWS.  If you have a proposal, feel free to contact us.