Amazon Web Services: Benefits and Challenges for Businesses

What is Amazon Web Services (AWS)?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a comprehensive cloud computing platform that provides a wide range of services to businesses. It offers a reliable and secure infrastructure, as well as a suite of tools and services that can be used to build, deploy, and manage applications. From storage, networking, and databases to analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, AWS has a wide range of products and services that can be used to meet the needs of businesses. It can be used across different industries and for different types of businesses. From startups to established enterprises, many businesses have chosen to host some or all of their applications on AWS. You can use AWS to build and run your applications in the cloud by leveraging AWS services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Machine Learning (Amazon ML). You can also use other services such as Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon CloudWatch, and Amazon CloudFormation to manage different aspects of your application. Before you start using AWS, it is important to understand the benefits and challenges of using the platform.

Benefits of using AWS for businesses

If you decide to use AWS as your cloud hosting solution, there are many advantages that you can reap. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Cost-effective - Using AWS, you can save more money than using traditional data centre infrastructure, especially in the long term. AWS charges you based on the use of resources. This pricing model is based on the number of hours you use the service and the type of service you use. With AWS, you pay for what you use, so you do not have to worry about making long-term investments or paying for resources that you are not using.

Reduced time to market - If you are building a new application or migrating your existing applications to the cloud, AWS can help you to increase efficiency, speed up development, and shorten your time to market. With AWS, you don’t need to worry about hosting your applications or scaling them. You can host your applications on AWS and focus on what matters most – building great applications.

Focus on core business - With AWS, you can offload the responsibility of managing your infrastructure, such as servers, networks, backup solutions, etc., to AWS. This allows you to focus on your core business, growing your company and meeting customer demands.

Challenges of using AWS

Although AWS offers many benefits for businesses, it does pose some challenges as well. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Slow adoption - One of the challenges associated with using AWS is its slow adoption rate. Many businesses have not adopted the platform due to a lack of skills, inability to understand the platform, lack of time to research, etc. If businesses want to reap the benefits of using AWS, they need to be willing to invest time and resources to learn how to use the platform.

Lack of trust - Another challenge associated with using AWS is the lack of trust in the cloud. Many businesses are reluctant to move their applications to the cloud due to security concerns. Businesses are worried that the provider might lose their data or accidentally disclose it to third parties.

Lack of budget - Businesses often face challenges in terms of budget. It is difficult for businesses to move to the cloud because of the initial investments required. Once you make the decision to move to the cloud, you will have to buy hardware and software, and make other significant investments to get started.

Lack of expertise - Another challenge associated with the adoption of AWS is the lack of expertise among businesses. Most businesses do not have employees with the required skills to use the platform. Even if you have the budget and are willing to make significant investments, it is important to hire qualified employees who can effectively use AWS to run your applications.

AWS infrastructure and services

When businesses decide to use AWS as their hosting solution, they first need to understand the underlying infrastructure of the platform. This can be done by reviewing the architecture of AWS. AWS has two primary services: Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3.

Amazon EC2 - Amazon EC2 is a web service that provides scalable computing capacity in the cloud. It is used to host applications in the cloud by provisioning servers. With EC2, you can run any application, whether it is software or hardware. EC2 has different instance types that offer different computing power, memory, and storage capacity. You can use different instance types depending on your application’s requirements and scale up or down as needed.

Amazon S3 - Amazon S3 is a web service for online data storage. It provides secure, durable, and flexible storage. S3 offers a range of storage options, like standard, infrequent access, infrequent access, and frequent access. It also allows businesses to store their data in different geographical locations to improve the availability of their applications.

AWS storage services

Once you have familiarized yourself with the AWS infrastructure, it is important to understand how AWS storage works. AWS storage consists of two storage types: Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier.

Amazon S3 - Amazon S3 is a storage service designed for data that is frequently accessed or generated, such as logs, photos, and application data. S3 offers three different storage options for businesses to store their data – standard, infrequent access, and frequent access.

Amazon Glacier - The Amazon Glacier storage service is designed for data that is infrequently accessed or rarely accessed. It is a low-cost storage service with a long retrieval time.

AWS security services

When businesses decide to use AWS, they will have to think about the security of their data. Amazon offers three security services that can be integrated with AWS to protect the data in the cloud – Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), Amazon Key Management Service (Amazon KMS), and Amazon CloudHSM. Amazon VPC allows businesses to create a virtual network where they can provision Amazon EC2 instances and connect them to their own network. With Amazon KMS, businesses can manage the keys and secrets that are used by their applications in the cloud. Amazon CloudHSM is a dedicated hardware security module that helps businesses manage the keys and secrets that are used by their applications in the cloud.

AWS analytics and machine learning services

Amazon offers two services that businesses can use to analyse their data and make smarter decisions – Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and Amazon Sagemaker. Amazon ECS is a managed service that allows businesses to process and run their analyses in a fully scalable and highly available environment. Amazon Sagemaker is a fully managed service that allows businesses to build machine-learning models without having any expertise in programming or modeling.

AWS artificial intelligence services

Amazon offers three AI services that can be used to build intelligent applications in the cloud – Amazon Polly, Amazon Lex, and Amazon Watson. Amazon Polly is a service that converts text into speech, enabling businesses to integrate voice-driven interfaces into their applications. Amazon Lex is a service that allows businesses to build and deploy conversational interfaces into their applications. Amazon Watson is a service that allows businesses to analyse large amounts of data, extract insights, and build AI-powered applications.

AWS pricing

When it comes to the cost of using AWS, it is important to understand that there is not a single price for the services. The prices are based on the type of service, the region, and the amount of resources that you use. For a small business, it is difficult to predict the number of resources that they may use. In such cases, it is better to start with the free tier of services and scale up.