Complete Guide To AWS: Features, Pricing Model, Benefits, Use Cases and More

Launched in 2006 as a simple storage service, today AWS offers more than 200 fully featured services powering from fastest-growing startups to large enterprises. 

From Apple to Netflix, Ford Motors to Walt Disney, and even McDonald’s, over 90% of Fortune 500 companies are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to lower costs, and innovate faster. 

Why some of the world’s leading businesses are using AWS, and how it can help you to scale your business digitally. This blog will help you understand everything related to AWS like what it is, its use case, services, and more. 

So, let’s get started.

What is Amazon Web Services (AWS)?

Simply said, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a public cloud service provider. It offers on-demand delivery Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-Service (SaaS). 

It has a highly scalable, and reliable infrastructure that allows businesses to build, deploy, and run any application, or service on the cloud reaching millions of users globally. 

AWS Cloud is indeed one of the first major cloud computing platforms that introduced a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Technically speaking, AWS has a microservice architecture built around Regions and Availability Zones. A Region refers to the physical location where AWS has multiple Availability Zones. Availability Zones, on the other hand, refer to the independent data centers, each of which has redundant power, connectivity, and networking. Furthermore, there are several independent services within the AWS microservice architecture that communicate with each other to provide a robust cloud environment.

History of AWS

Amazon Web Services was launched in 2006 as a Simple Storage Services (Amazon S3). AWS S3 was designed to enable organizations to store the data in the cloud and retrieve it from anywhere. 

Later in the same year, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) was introduced to enable organizations to instantly rent the computing resources they need to run their applications on the cloud.

Amazon SimpleDB, a highly scalable database was launched in the year 2007.  This year, Amazon DevPay was also launched enabling developers to generate revenue from their services. 

Realizing the need of its growing customer base, AWS Premier Support, and Service Health Dashboard was introduced in 2008. Amazon CloudFront, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) also made its debut. 

In early 2009, the AWS Management Console was introduced to streamline the process of resource management. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) was introduced enabling customers to create isolated networks in AWS. 

From 2010 to 2012 AWS worked on launching new regions, and availability to proliferate its global expansion.  During this tenure, AWS CloudFormation, and Amazon RDS were also introduced. 

The rising popularity of big data and IoT devices led to the birth of AWS RedShift, a data warehousing service, and AWS Lambda to enable serverless computing in 2013. The next year, Amazon Kinesis was also introduced to promote real-time data processing.

AWS IoT was also introduced in 2015 to ensure communication between the cloud and widespread IoT devices. 

From its early days, AWS was a pioneer in accepting innovation, and the same thread continued in 2016 with the introduction of Amazon Lex and Amazon Polly that added natural language processing, and text-to-speech capabilities.  The next year, a fully managed service Amazon SageMaker was launched for building, deploying, and training machine learning models. It is now used by more than 22,852 companies globally.

Beyond Amazon SageMaker, it expanded machine learning offerings by introducing Amazon Comprehend and Amazon Rekognition in 2018.

In 2019, and 2020 the focus was narrowed down to security and compliance. A few products like AWS Control Tower, Amazon Honeycode, and AWS Copilot were introduced. 

In 2021, AWS App Runner, a fully managed service that helps in the deployment of containerized applications was introduced, along with AWS Graviton2, a successor to EC2 Instances. 

AWS CodeCatalyst, AWS Data Exchange, and AWS Security Lake made their debuts in 2022. In 2023, AWS fortified its position by introducing advanced AI and developer tools such as Amazon CodeWhisperer, AWS Service Catalog support for Terraform, and M7g and R7g instances.

In 2024, Amazon Web Services is taking measures to extend its region and global availability zones. It has more than 200 services to businesses catering to all their needs related to cloud computing today. 

In 2024, and beyond, it is anticipated that AWS will extend its geographical regions, industry-specific tools, and capabilities for technologies like generative AI, machine learning, etc.

Different Types of AWS Services

As said earlier, Amazon Web Services is a full-featured cloud service provider. It offers a wide range of services including computing, storage, database, analytics, networking, and more. All these cloud computing services are designed with the sheer goal of delivering all the resources a business necessities to develop and deploy its application on the cloud.

Here is a detailed overview of the AWS services:

1. Compute Services

AWS compute services are scalable, secure, and flexible to satisfy the computing requirements of all sizes of projects from small-scale to enterprise-grade. 

Examples of AWS computing services include:

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Services

EC2 allows users to rent instances i.e. virtual servers that can be configured to meet the workload requirements. Here AWS Elastic Compute Cloud services along with their use cases;

• Amazon EC2: It provides the on-demand computing capacity in the AWS.
• Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling: Responsible for maintaining the availability of your application by provisioning the EC2 instance according to the policies set by you.
• EC2 Image Builder: It automates the creation, management, and deployment of images on the AWS cloud.
• Amazon Lightsail: Go-to-resource for all the needs related to instances, container services, CDN, load balancers, and more. 

Container services

AWS container services manage the process of deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications. Here of the list of the services AWS offers to manage containerized applications:

• Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): A fully managed service for deploying, managing, and scaling applications.
• Amazon ECS Anywhere: As the name suggests, it allows you to run containerized applications on any platform outside the AWS.
• AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS): It is a managed Kubernetes service that allows you to run your application eradicating the hassle of installing, operating, and managing Kubernetes.
• Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR):  It is responsible for storing, managing, and deploying images needed by applications working with AWS ECS, or EKS.
• AWS App Runner: A fully managed service to facilitate the deployment of the application eliminating the need for extensive infrastructure management. 

Serverless Computing

AWS serverless computing services allow you to build and run applications without the stress of managing the underlying server. Following serverless computing services are offered by Amazon Web Services;

• AWS Fargate: It is a serverless computing engine that works on the pay-as-you-go model. 
• AWS Lambda: It is responsible for the administration of the computing resources to ensure the high availability of your application. From auto-scaling and operating systems to capacity management, it works on all aspects of computing infrastructure. 

On-premises or Edge Compute

Besides the cloud, Amazon Web Services allows you to use services in on-premises data centers, and at a location that is closer to your users to ensure the data processing in real-time. Here are the AWS services that allow you to do so:

• AWS Outpost: It allows the AWS infrastructure and a broad range of services to be run on the on-premise server. 
• AWS Wavelength: It benefits developers to achieve ultra-low-latencies by deploying AWS services in the 5G networks.
• AWS Local Zones:  It allows you to deploy your applications closure to your end-users to enable real-time communication with ultra-low latency.

Cost and Capacity Management

Amazon Web Services also offers cost optimization services that benefit you with strategic recommendations on managing and optimizing AWS resources to save costs. It has tools like AWS Compute Optimizer that uses AI and machine learning to recommend the right workload to reduce the cost.

2. Security, Identity, and Compliance Services 

Amazon Web Services puts a strong emphasis on security services. All AWS services are designed to meet the needs of security-sensitive organizations while allowing them to scale and innovate in the cloud. 

With identity services, Amazon Web Services ensures access to the data to authorized personnel only. Furthermore, cloud governance across AWS resources ensures the business is compliant with data privacy and protection laws & regulations. 

Here is the overview of AWS’s security, identity, and compliance products;

• AWS Identity and Access Management: Assists businesses in setting up fine-grained access by defining who may access what resources and services. 
• AWS Audit Manager: It is a pre-built framework that accesses policies, activities, and procedures to collect information such as resource configurations, compliance checks, etc.
• Amazon Cognito: It helps developers to implement functionalities such as sign-up, and sign-in to applications conveniently.
• AWS Certificate Manager: A centralized repository that is responsible for provisioning, managing, and deployment of both public and private certificates for your AWS services and other resources. 
• Amazon Security Lake: It collects and organizes the security data from the AWS environment, on-premises servers, and other third-party services. This data is stored in your AWS account and can be used to strengthen the security postures. 
• AWS Firewall Manager: A centralized source for configuring, and managing all your firewall policies across your AWS environment. 
• AWS Key Management: Allows you to create, and control cryptographic keys to enforce the stringent encryption of data.
• Amazon Macie: A fully managed AWS service driven by machine learning and pattern matching to discover and secure sensitive data at scales.
• Amazon Inspector: It is an automated vulnerability management service that scans all your AWS resources to flag software vulnerabilities and other security threats.
• AWS Shield: Detects and mitigates the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Services) to ensure the maximum availability of the application. 
• AWS Security Hub:  It automates the process of performing security checks, and aggregates the security changes into a single place. 
• IAM Identity Center: Allows the developer to set up highly available Single Sign-on (SSO) services into their application without any upfront investment. 

Besides there are several other AWS services geared towards maintaining security identity, identity, and compliance;

• Amazon Detective
• Amazon Verified Permissions
• AWS Artifacts
• AWS CloudHSM
• Amazon Firewall Manager
• Network Firewall
• Amazon WAF
• WAF Captcha
• AWS Resources Access Manager

3. Databases Services

The database is the foundation of any application to store the data. Amazon Web Services offers support for two types of databases: relational and non-relational. 

AWS offers support for the following database types each is capable of handling the different data types:

Relational Databases

It is best suited for migrating the on-premises data stored in tables, rows, and columns. Amazon Web Services offers the following two relational database services;

• Amazon Aurora
• Amazon RDS

Key-value Databases

These types of databases have distributed processing and storage capabilities allowing them to serve millions of users simultaneously. It is best suited for businesses that seek single-digit millisecond performance. One such key-value database is Amazon DynamoDB. 

In-memory Databases

These databases store the data in the server’s random access memory (RAM) to deliver low-latency data processing services. It is best optimized for applications like gaming, and IoT that require real-time data processing.

AWS has the following in-memory database engines;

• Amazon ElastiCache
• Amazon MemoryDB

Document Databases

It is an ideal choice for semi-structured documents that have complex querying abilities. Amazon DocumentDB is an example of such a database.

Graph Databases

These types of databases are primarily used for managing the data with complex relationships while maintaining the lowest latency. Amazon Neptune database engine is the best example of it.

Time-series Databases

These types of databases are best suited to handle the time-stamped data. Amazon Timestream is an example of such a database.

Ledger Databases

These databases are best suited for maintaining a transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable history of database changes. Amazon QLDB (Quantum Ledger Databases).

4. Storage Services

Amazon Web Services has a broad range of storage services to cater to the needs of organizations from small-scale to large enterprises. 

Here is a quick walkthrough of the portfolio of AWS storage services:

• AWS Backup: It is a fully managed centralized backup service that automates the data backup across the AWS environment. Furthermore, you can define the policies to instruct AWS on how to create, create, retain, and delete backups.
• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3): It allows the users to store and protect the data at any scale at an affordable cost. 
• AWS Storage Gateway: It acts as the gateway between on-premises applications and cloud storage.

Apart from these services, AWS also provides the following storage services;

• Amazon FSx for Windows File Server
• Amazon FSx for OpenZFS
• AWS FSx for NetApp ONTAP
• Amazon FSx for Luster
• Amazon File Cache
• AWS Elastic File System 
• AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery
• Amazon Elastic Block Store

5. Migration and Transfer Services

AWS has a diverse range of tools and resources to help organizations migrate their infrastructure, applications, or data to the AWS cloud. Here is a list of AWS migration services;

• AWS Application Discovery Services: It helps you to get a snapshot of the on-premises server inventory and behavior to understand the workload and plan migration accordingly, 
• AWS Application Migration Service: It automates the migration of your source server to AWS to reduce the time, and scope of human errors. Furthermore, it also has built-in, and custom optimization options to modernize the application for improved performance, security, and reliability.
• AWS Database Migration Services:  It is a managed migration and replication service that supports both homogeneous and heterogeneous database migration.
• AWS Migration Hub: It is a centralized control panel to manage the complete migration process from assessment to planning to final execution.

Besides these services, Amazon Web Services also offers the following services for migration use cases:

• AWS Transfer Family
• AWS DataSync
• Amazon Snow Family 
• AWS Snowball 
• AWS Snowcone
• Amazon Mainframe Modernization Services

Besides these some of the most commonly used AWS services, its broad portfolio also includes:

• Networking and content delivery services
• Analytics services
• Application integration services
• Blockchain
• Business applications 
• Customer enablement
• Containers services
• Databases services
• Management & Governance
• Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence
• Internet of Things (IoT)

Some Important States on AWS

Since 2006, Amazon Web Services Cloud has continuously grown and achieved new milestones. Here we have compiled a list of some important states on AWS that demonstrate its growth:

AWS Market Share 2024

AWS is a dominant player in cloud services with 31% cloud infrastructure market share worldwide in the first quarter of 2024. Its main competitors are Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform which respectively hold 25%, and 11% of the market share. (Source: Synergy Research Group)

Number of Companies That Use AWS

Globally, more than 2.38 billion companies are using the AWS cloud services (HG Insights). Approximately one-third (68.24%) of the AWS customers are small-to-midsize businesses.  

As said earlier, around 90% of Fortune 500 companies are using AWS. Netflix is one of the biggest AWS customers considering its monthly EC2 monthly spend. 

Here is a list of the world’s most renowned companies that use AWS;

• Airtable
• Netsmart
• Nasdaq
• Cisco
• Adobe
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest 
• United Airlines
• Coca-Cola
• DoorDash
• Sensor Tower
• Salesforce 
• Stripe
• Coinbase
• JohnDeere
• Yahoo

Benefits of AWS Cloud

Organizations must understand the benefits of AWS cloud before they make investments in it. Here we have compiled a list of benefits that will help you with decision-making:

1. Global Infrastructure

AWS has a global infrastructure with 108 availability zones (AZs) launched within 34 regions. Furthermore, Amazon is also planning to launch 18 more availability zones in 6 regions. 

This allows the business to deploy applications and workloads in the availability zones closer to your target audience to achieve the millisecond latency. 

Besides regions and AZs, AWS has more than 600 CloudFront Points of Presence (PoPs). These PoPs refer to the data centers, and they are part of Amazon CloudFront. These PoPs work to reduce the latency by delivering the content to the users from the data centers closer to them. 

Amazon Web Services has more than 41 local zones, and 29 wavelength zones. Local zones bring the AWS compute, network, database, storage, and other services to specific geographical areas like metropolitan cities, IT centers, etc. This allows local data processing enabling latency-sensitive applications (like streaming, IoT, and more) to deliver content to their users without buffering. 

AWS Wavelength is an optimal choice for mobile edge computing applications that require ultra-low latency. It allows the developers to embed the AWS services at the edge of the 5G network eliminating the distance data must travel.

2. Security and Compliance

When it comes to security, AWS security services, and tools are second to none. It works on the shared responsibility model where both AWS and customers are in partnership to maintain security. AWS undertakes the cloud infrastructure security, while customers undertake the security of the data they deploy in the cloud. 

This clear understanding of the responsibilities helps both parties (customers and AWS) to ensure security, and reliability while maintaining confidentiality. 

Furthermore, AWS data centers have multiple layers of security consisting of surveillance, access, and physical controls. It enforces advanced network security protocols such as firewalls, DDoS protection, and intrusion detection systems. 

Amazon Web Services has numerous compliance certifications including:

•     SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3
•     ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018
•     PCI DSS Level 1
•     HIPAA
•     GDPR

3. Fast Growing Platform

AWS is always known to be innovative and experimental.  It started as a simple storage service, and today offers more than 200+ services. This is not the end of the AWS innovation thread, it is continually investing in cutting-edge technologies to develop solutions that promise competitive advantages to its customers. You can refer to https://aws.amazon.com/new/ to find out what new AWS is introducing to its customers. 

4.  Flexible Capacity

Amazon Web Services allows you to scale your application when your traffic goes upward. You can easily scale from one virtual machine to hundreds or thousands in a fraction of a second to deliver a smooth experience. So you don’t need to predict future demands and reserve the resources in advance to meet those demands. 

AWS allows you to add capabilities when required, and discard them not needed, so pay for what you utilize.

AWS Pricing: How Much AWS Will Cost You?

AWS pricing is calculated based on usage. You only pay for the AWS services you use, and only for the time you use them. The pricing of each service is publicly available on the Amazon Web Services pricing page. 

AWS also offers a free tier pricing model where you can use 100+ AWS products at no cost.  Some of the products are free for a lifetime, while others offer a 12-month free trial. 

Furthermore, AWS also offers a cost calculator to help you know the estimated cost you have to pay.

How to Get Started With AWS?

Ready to get started with Amazon Web Services? The very first step would be to choose the right services and launch the application on the AWS cloud. You can refer to hands-on tutorials to learn the step-by-step guide you have to follow to launch your application, or you can join hands with AWS partners.

AWS partners are specialized partners with the technical expertise needed to leverage the benefits of the world’s most advanced, and secure cloud platform. 

Cyntexa is an AWS-specialized partner delivering innovation to businesses globally with AWS cloud. Let’s connect with us to know how we can help you.