5 Critical Things to Know About AWS

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If you run a business, and you’ve heard of AWS, or Amazon Web Services, you might be considering whether or not to employ it to handle your company’s infrastructure.

That is something that’s well worth considering. AWS can be extremely useful, and if you can master some of its services and features, you should be able to manage your operation efficiently.

In this article, we’ll talk about some of the features that AWS offers, and what kind of businesses would most benefit from utilizing it.

What is AWS?

You can look at AWS as a way of deploying different applications to the cloud. Whether you’re most concerned with a single pane of glass solution for AWS cloud infrastructure or you want heightened security for your inter-company messaging, this service provides it.

AWS:

Is a cloud computing service
Is cost-effective and flexible
Provides on-demand storage capabilities

AWS is a service deployment model of cloud computing. It allows you to control data and information based on your preferences. Part of what’s so appealing about it is how customizable it is.

From the basic jumping-off point, you can modify it so that it fits your business model exactly.

The Difference Between Cloud Hosting Services and On-Premises Servers

If you need a host for the network that your business uses, then you have two basic options. The first is physical servers located somewhere that you control. Usually, you rent office space and have the servers there.

You need technicians to work on the servers periodically. You also often have to pay for the servers all at once.

The other option is a cloud-based hosting setup, like AWS. This is where you pay for the service monthly, quarterly, or yearly. You get a massive feature package with your subscription. Because it’s a whole digital network, you don’t have to worry about physical servers.

This means you:

Save money on the electric bill from running the servers
Save on the office space that you’d otherwise have to rent

AWS also provides all maintenance, saving you that fee as well.

AWS is the World’s Most Prominent Cloud Hosting Service

You’re in good company when you use AWS. More individuals and companies use it than any other cloud hosting service that exists right now. It’s not surprising that it’s so popular when you think about how Amazon dominates at-home delivery as well.

It has two main products. The first is Amazon’s virtual machine service, while the other is its storage system. They also offer many products under the main AWS banner, including Virtual Private Cloud, SimpleDB, their Simple Storage Service, the Amazon Simple Queue Service, and their Simple Notification Service.

The more you modify and customize the package you get from them, the better it will fit your company’s needs.

The Most Common AWS Uses

People probably use AWS for storage more than anything else. This is their Simple Storage Service or S3. With it, you can back up your business’s data. That data might include details of who buys from you, including their credit card numbers, addresses, buying preferences, etc.

As you can imagine, that’s all critical information, so you need to secure it. You can use AWS to store up to 5 GB, which is a tremendous data amount.

AWS has what they call buckets, which are like digital storage containers. You can put all your data and files in there and access them whenever you need to.

There is also another storage tier that AWS calls Glacier. This is “cold storage” or data that you need for long-term use, but you probably won’t require daily. Glacier is the lower-cost storage version since you won’t be adding to it or referencing it frequently.

Database Management

The other common reason that people use AWS is for database management. This is what they call their Amazon Relational Database Service. Here, you can interface with many different storage services and database engines.

As a user, you can backup data, migrate it, and recover it whenever you need it. It’s this impressive flexibility that leads many companies to seek out this AWS facet.

This is only a bit of what you can do with AWS. The more you find out about it, the more impressive it becomes.

Subscribing to it can check off many boxes on your everyday office to-do list. It also frequently makes sense price-wise, and you won’t have to worry about housing and maintaining the servers if you want to go this route.

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