Ever stared at the sky and wondered how beautiful the clouds really are! Not just this, it’s their nature to adapt to climatic changeover and circumstances. In parallel, the cloud computing concept is also designed to accommodate user requirements & changeover. In a similar spirit, AWS cloud computing offers a flexible and user-friendly solution to accommodate your unique needs and requirements.
Let me define the term ‘Cloud Computing. It is convenient, on-demand access to a pool of IT resources such as computing, networks, servers, storage, database, and application services through the internet with pay-as-you-pricing. The unique offering of Amazon Web Services (AWS) is that it is “broad, fast, measured and innovative”.
There is no chance that AWS can escape most of our everyday life activities. Be it ordering your groceries, booking tickets online, education, governance, and a lot more.
And that’s how AWS holds a whopping 34% market share in the worldwide cloud infrastructure market as of October 2022.
In this article, we will read about…
Topics covered:
What is AWS?
How does AWS work?
History of AWS
AWS Ecosystem
Why should an organisation choose AWS?
Who is using AWS?
AWS pricing models
AWS current market share.
Why is AWS so successful?
Popular use cases of AWS
Why should you learn AWS?
Future of AWS
What is AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform that provides a wide range of services such as computing, storage, networking, database, analytics, machine learning, security, and application development. These services are designed to help organisations scale and grow their businesses, and are delivered over the Internet (cloud) with pay-as-you-go pricing. AWS is one of the leading cloud computing platforms, and many companies and organisations use it to host their websites, applications, and data.
How does AWS work?
To use AWS, you will need to create an account and sign up for the services you want to use. You can then access these services through the AWS Management Console, a web-based interface that allows you to manage your AWS resources, or through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that allow you to programmatically access the services.
Once you have signed up for the services you need, you can use them to build, deploy, and run your applications and workloads in the cloud. You can also use AWS to store and manage your data, and to take advantage of other services such as machine learning, analytics, and security.
Overall, AWS provides a powerful and flexible platform that can help you scale and grow your business, while minimising the costs and complexity of managing your own infrastructure.
History of AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) was officially launched on March 14, 2006, at the AWS Summit in San Francisco, California. It was launched as a way for Amazon to sell the excess capacity of its massive network of data centers to other companies and organizations. Prior to the launch of AWS, Amazon had been using its data centers to power its own online retail business, and it realized that it could also use these resources to offer cloud computing services to others.
AWS began with just three services: Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), a scalable storage service; Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), a scalable computing service; and Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service), a scalable messaging service. Since then, AWS has grown significantly and now offers more than 200 services, including a wide range of compute, storage, database, analytics, machine learning, security, and application development services.
AWS has become a major player in the cloud computing market, and it is used by many companies and organizations around the world. In 2021, AWS reported that it had more than 4 million active customers and that its services were used in more than 190 countries.
Here is a timeline of some key events in the history of Amazon Web Services (AWS):
March 14, 2006: AWS is officially launched at the AWS Summit in San Francisco, California. It initially offers three services: Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), and Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service).
November 2007: AWS introduces its first support for Windows and .NET, making it easier for developers to build and deploy applications on the platform.
August 2009: AWS launches its first region in Europe, in Dublin, Ireland.
July 2010: AWS introduces its first mobile development platform, AWS Mobile SDK, which makes it easier for developers to build mobile apps that use AWS services.
December 2010: AWS launches its first NoSQL database service, Amazon DynamoDB.
April 2011: AWS launches its first big data service, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), which makes it easier for users to process and analyze large data sets.
June 2012: AWS launches its first data warehousing service, Amazon Redshift.
October 2012: AWS launches its first container service, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), which makes it easier to deploy and manage containerized applications.
October 2013: AWS launches its first security and compliance certification program, AWS Compliance Program.
November 2014: AWS launches its first Internet of Things (IoT) service, AWS IoT, which makes it easier for users to connect, manage, and process data from Internet of Things devices.
October 2016: AWS launches its first machine learning service, Amazon Machine Learning (AML), which makes it easier for developers to build and deploy machine learning models.
December 2016: AWS launches its first quantum computing service, Amazon Bracket, which allows users to experiment with quantum computers and develop quantum algorithms.
July 2020: AWS launches its first fully managed database service for mainframes, Amazon
RDS for IBM Db2 on z/OS.
AWS has continued to add new services and expand its global infrastructure over the years, and it is now one of the leading cloud computing platforms in the world.
AWS Ecosystem
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) ecosystem is made up of a wide range of services and tools that work together to help organizations build, deploy, and run applications and workloads in the cloud. These services and tools are designed to be highly interoperable so that they can be easily combined and used in a variety of different ways to meet the specific needs of different users and organizations.
Some of the main categories of services and tools in the AWS ecosystem include:
Compute: Services that allow you to run applications and workloads in the cloud, including Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), AWS Lambda, and Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service).
Storage: Services that allow you to store and manage data in the cloud, including Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store), and Amazon FSx (File Storage).
Database: Services that provide database solutions for storing, managing, and analyzing data in the cloud, including Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service), Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Redshift.
Networking: Services that allow you to connect your cloud resources to the Internet and to other resources, including Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud), Amazon Direct Connect, and Amazon Route 53.
Security: Services that help you secure your cloud resources and data, including Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Inspector, and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).
Analytics: Services that allow you to process and analyze data in the cloud, including Amazon EMR (Elastic MapReduce), Amazon Athena, and Amazon QuickSight.
Machine learning: Services that allow you to build, train, and deploy machine learning models in the cloud, including Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Lex, and Amazon Rekognition.
Application development: Services and tools that help you build and deploy applications in the cloud, including AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeBuild, and AWS CodeStar.
Application Integration: Services and tools that help you create a seamless flow of data and functionality between your applications and other systems, including Amazon SNS, Amazon SQS, AWS Step Functions, and Amazon Eventbridge.
Overall, the AWS ecosystem provides a wide range of services and tools that can help organizations of all sizes and industries to build, deploy, and run their applications and workloads in the cloud.
Why should an organization choose AWS?
There are several reasons why organizations choose to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their cloud computing platform:
Scalability: AWS allows you to quickly and easily scale your resources up or down to meet the changing needs of your business. This can help you to save money by only paying for the resources you use, and it can also help you to handle sudden spikes in demand without having to invest in additional hardware.
Cost-effectiveness: AWS offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which means that you only pay for the resources you use. This can help you to save money compared to purchasing and maintaining your own hardware and infrastructure.
Reliability: AWS has a global infrastructure that is designed to be highly available and resilient, with multiple layers of security to protect your data and applications. This can help you to build and run applications and workloads with confidence, knowing that your resources are secure and available when you need them.
Flexibility: AWS provides a wide range of services and tools that can be easily combined and customized to meet the specific needs of your business. This can help you to build and run applications and workloads in a way that is tailored to your unique requirements.
Innovation: AWS is constantly introducing new services and features, which can help you to take advantage of the latest technologies and stay ahead of the curve.
Overall, AWS is a powerful and flexible platform that can help organizations of all sizes and industries to scale and grow their businesses while minimizing the costs and complexity of managing their own infrastructure.
Who is using AWS?
There are many companies that use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their cloud computing platform. Some well-known examples include Airbnb, Netflix, and Spotify. It’s also worth noting that AWS customers can be different types of entities, for example:
- Small and medium businesses (SMBs)
- Startups
- Enterprises
- Governments
- Non-profit organisations
- Educational institutions
AWS is a popular choice because it offers a wide range of services, including storage, computing, and networking, as well as tools for monitoring and management. AWS is also highly scalable, so companies can easily increase or decrease their usage as needed.
Some Indian companies have also preferred to use AWS for a variety of business. Some well-known examples include Flipkart, Makemytrip, Ola, Sharda University, Tata Trusts, Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Company (PMIDC) and Simpliv.
AWS pricing models
The AWS Free Tier is a program that allows new AWS customers to try out certain services at no charge for a period of 12 months. The services and resources included in the Free Tier vary depending on the service, but they typically include a certain amount of usage or a certain number of instances.
AWS Free Tier includes services like Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, and more, with a certain amount of usage for free for 12 months. Additionally, AWS also provides free usage tiers for other services like AWS Lambda, Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, and many more.
The free usage tiers are designed to give you an opportunity to test and evaluate AWS services, and it can be a good way to get started with a new service or application without incurring charges. Once you exceed the usage limits of the free tier, you will be charged at the standard rate for that service.
It’s also worth noting that the free usage tiers are not just for new customers, Even existing customers can still use these services for free until they reach the usage limits specified. AWS provides a billing dashboard to track and monitor your usage, so you can keep an eye on how much you’re spending and how close you are to reaching the free usage limits.
AWS offers three plans under free-tier usage – free trials, 12-months free and always free.
There are several pricing models available for specific AWS resources. These models allow customers to pay for only the services and resources they use, and to choose the pricing option that best fits their needs. The main AWS pricing models include:
On-Demand pricing: With this model, customers pay for the services and resources they use, with no upfront costs or long-term commitments. This model is ideal for customers who need the flexibility to scale their usage up or down based on their changing needs.
Reserved Instance pricing: With this model, customers can make a one-time payment or pay a low, hourly rate for a reserved instance, which provides a capacity reservation for a specified period of time, such as one or three years. This model is ideal for customers who have predictable usage patterns and want to save money by committing to a longer-term usage.
Spot Instance pricing: With this model, customers can bid on spare Amazon EC2 capacity, which allows them to save up to 90% on their hourly usage costs. This model is ideal for customers who have flexible usage patterns and can tolerate interruptions.
Dedicated Host pricing: With this model, customers can pay to have physical servers dedicated to their use, which can be useful for regulatory compliance, licensing requirements, or control over the placement of instances.
Pay-per-Use: services like Amazon S3, DynamoDB, Amazon Kinesis, etc are priced by the amount of data stored, the amount of data retrieved, and the number of requests made, etc.
AWS Amplify : This pricing model is for web and mobile development, you can use it for building, deploying and hosting web apps or mobile apps and pay based on usage.
AWS Cost Explorer: Tool for estimating costs and optimising usage.
AWS current market share.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is currently the market leader in the cloud computing industry. According to Synergy Research Group, in the third quarter of 2022, AWS had a 34% share of the global cloud infrastructure market, followed by Microsoft Azure with a 21% share, and Google Cloud with an 11% share. These three providers account for more than 66% of the global cloud infrastructure market.
It is worth noting that the cloud computing market is constantly evolving, and the market share of different cloud providers can vary over time. AWS has consistently been the market leader, but other providers such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are also growing rapidly and making significant investments in their cloud platforms.
Why is AWS so successful?
There are several reasons why AWS has been so successful:
- First-mover advantage: AWS was one of the first major cloud computing platforms to be introduced, which gave it an early lead in the market and allowed it to establish a strong customer base.
- Wide range of services: AWS offers a vast array of services and tools, from computing power and storage to databases and analytics, making it a one-stop shop for many customers’ needs.
- Scalability: AWS allows customers to easily scale up or down their usage, based on their changing needs. This flexibility is especially appealing to businesses that need to rapidly scale their resources to meet the demands of their customers.
- Cost-effective: AWS’s pay-as-you-go pricing model is highly cost-effective, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that can’t afford to invest in expensive on-premises infrastructure.
- Security and Compliance: AWS has a robust security and compliance infrastructure, with various certifications, compliance, and security features. AWS also regularly audits its services against various industry standards and regulations.
- Global Presence: AWS has a global infrastructure, which includes multiple regions and availability zones, allowing customers to easily deploy their applications and services to multiple locations worldwide.
- Innovation: AWS continuously releases new services and features, which keep its customers up-to-date with the latest technologies.
- Strong Partner Ecosystem: AWS has a large and active ecosystem of partners, which includes independent software vendors, system integrators, managed service providers, and more. This ecosystem provides customers with a wide range of additional services and solutions, which they can use to complement the services they already use from AWS.
These are just a few of the reasons why AWS has been so successful. The combination of its early start, wide range of services, scalability, cost-effectiveness, security and compliance, global presence, innovation, and strong partner ecosystem has helped it become the leader in the cloud computing market
Popular use cases of AWS
AWS is a highly versatile cloud computing platform that can be used for a wide variety of use cases. Some of the most popular use cases of AWS include:
- Web and Application Hosting: Many customers use AWS to host their websites and web applications, taking advantage of services like Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) to handle their compute and storage needs.
- Content Delivery: Services like Amazon CloudFront can be used to deliver content, such as images, videos, and other static files, to users around the world with low latency.
- Data Warehousing and Analytics: Services like Amazon Redshift and Amazon Athena can be used to store and analyse large amounts of data, making it easy for customers to gain insights and make data-driven decisions.
- Big Data Processing: AWS offers a range of services, such as Amazon EMR, Apache Hadoop, and Apache Spark, that allow customers to process and analyse large amounts of data in parallel, quickly and cost-effectively.
- Backup and Disaster Recovery: Services like Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier can be used to store backups and archives, providing a cost-effective way to protect against data loss due to hardware failure or other issues.
- Machine Learning: AWS provides a range of machine learning services, like Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Rekognition, and Amazon Transcribe, that can be used to build, train, and deploy machine learning models.
- Internet of Things (IoT): AWS IoT services like AWS IoT Core, AWS IoT Analytics, and AWS IoT Device Management, help customers to securely connect and manage their IoT devices, and process and analyse the data they generate.
- Mobile and Gaming: AWS provides services like Amazon Pinpoint, AWS AppSync, and Amazon GameLift that allow customers to build, deploy, and scale mobile and gaming applications easily.
- Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): AWS Workspaces and Appstream 2.0 allows customers to provide secure, managed virtual desktops and applications to their employees, contractors or students.
These are just a few examples of the many use cases for AWS. The wide range of services provided by AWS allows customers to use it for a wide variety of workloads, from simple to complex.
Why should you learn AWS?
Learning AWS can be a valuable investment for a number of reasons:
- High Demand: AWS is one of the most popular cloud computing platforms, and it’s used by many organisations of all sizes to run their websites, applications, and other services. This makes it a highly in-demand skill among companies looking to hire cloud engineers, DevOps engineers, and other IT professionals.
- Career Advancement: Having knowledge of AWS and cloud computing in general can open doors to new job opportunities, such as cloud architect, solutions architect, or even more specialised roles such as security or big data on AWS.
- High Earning Potential: According to indeed.com, the average annual salary for an AWS certified professional is around $125,000 in the US.
- Flexibility: AWS provides a wide range of services, so it’s easy to find something that fits your interests and goals. Plus, because AWS is constantly releasing new services and features, you’ll have the opportunity to learn new technologies as they emerge.
- Wide Range of use cases: As we discussed earlier, AWS can be used for a wide variety of use cases, from web and application hosting to big data processing, machine learning, and more, making it a versatile skill to have.
- Strong Ecosystem: AWS has a strong ecosystem of partners, which includes independent software vendors, system integrators, managed service providers, and more. This ecosystem provides customers with a wide range of additional services and solutions, which they can use to complement the services they already use from AWS.
- Cost-effective: AWS’s pay-as-you-go pricing model is highly cost-effective, and the Free-tier option is a good way to learn the services without incurring charges.
- Large Community: AWS has a large and active community of users and developers, which can be a great resource for learning and getting help with specific problems.
These are just a few reasons why learning AWS can be a valuable investment. Cloud computing, and specifically AWS, is playing a crucial role in businesses, therefore investing time and effort in learning AWS can be a step towards a stable and well-paying career in the technology industry.
Future of AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the leading cloud computing platforms, and it’s likely to continue to be a major player in the market in the future. Some of the reasons why AWS is likely to remain important in the future include:
- Continued growth of cloud computing: Cloud computing is becoming increasingly important as more and more businesses look to move their operations to the cloud. AWS, as one of the leading cloud providers, is well-positioned to benefit from this trend.
- Investment in new services: AWS is known for its fast-paced innovation, and the company is likely to continue to invest in new services and features, which will make it even more attractive to customers.
- Global expansion: AWS has a global infrastructure, which includes multiple regions and availability zones. It’s likely to continue expanding its infrastructure and services to new regions, which will help it better serve its customers in different parts of the world.
- Focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: AWS is investing heavily on AI and Machine learning services and expanding the capabilities of the existing services, which could make it a leader in this field.
- Edge computing: With the rapid adoption of IoT and the increase in data generated at the edge, AWS is likely to focus on edge computing and the challenges it brings, such as low latency and high availability.
- 5G: With the adoption of 5G networks, AWS is expected to focus on low-latency services and services that support real-time applications, such as gaming, video streaming, and other applications that require low latency.
- Healthcare and Life sciences: AWS is expected to invest in the healthcare and life sciences sectors, creating services and solutions that will help researchers, healthcare providers, and healthcare companies to analyse large amounts of data and to develop new treatments.
- Public Sector: AWS is already widely used by public sector organisations, such as government agencies and educational institutions, and it is likely to continue to invest in these markets, creating services and solutions that will help them to better serve citizens and students.
AWS is likely to continue to be a major player in the cloud computing market in the future, and investing in knowledge and skills in AWS is likely to remain a valuable investment for professionals in the technology industry.
Should you learn multi-cloud?
Whether or not to learn multi-cloud depends on your career goals and the industry you work in. Some benefits of learning multi-cloud could be:
- Vendor independence: Being proficient in multiple cloud platforms allows you to work with different clients and companies that may be using different cloud providers. This can make you a more valuable asset to your organisation or to clients.
- Cost savings: Multi-cloud environments can allow organisations to take advantage of the strengths of different cloud providers and to reduce costs by avoiding vendor lock-in.
- Improved resiliency and disaster recovery: Using multiple cloud providers can improve resiliency and disaster recovery by distributing data and workloads across multiple platforms.
- Better suited for specific workloads or regulatory compliance: Different workloads may have different requirements that can be better met by using different cloud platforms. Also, different regulatory compliance may require using specific cloud providers
- Hybrid Cloud: Multi-cloud also enables organisations to take advantage of a hybrid cloud approach, which allows them to easily move workloads between on-premises and cloud environments.
However, learning multi-cloud also has its own challenges, such as the need to understand the different management tools, networking, and security of different cloud providers, the additional complexity, and the increased management overhead.
Before deciding to learn multi-cloud, it’s a good idea to consider your specific career goals and the industry you work in. If you work in a highly regulated industry such as healthcare or finance, or you’re interested in working with large enterprises, you might find that learning multi-cloud is beneficial. However, if you’re working with smaller companies or startups, it might be more beneficial to focus on a single cloud provider like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
Ultimately, it’s always good to have knowledge of different platforms and to be able to adapt to different environments, but you don’t have to be an expert in all of them. You should consider the resources and time you can afford to invest, and focus on the platforms that are most important to your career or your organization.
Conclusion
All said and done, I personally feel it is always good to be in line with the current technology trends and upskill yourself continuously to remain relevant in your professional career. I am sure this blog has given you an overall understanding of the AWS cloud ecosystem and its increasing popularity and adoption. Hope the viewpoints shared here help you smoothen your AWS learning trajectory.
Stay tuned for more such interesting articles on AWS career and hands-on learning.
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