Why App Developers Love AWS? – Amazon Web Services

Before the inception of cloud computing, there was a time when we used to have physical servers for each and every online services started. This was the only remedy and the solution to ensure connectivity all throughout the globe. It was never easy to deploy servers since initially, they cost bucks. Yes, servers weren’t even close to a high-end desktop as the price of a server went way beyond. Then secondly, you had to properly maintain them in order to ensure a 24*7 functioning website. Although, things soon began to change with the inclusion of cloud computing in the information technology era.

On-Demand Cloud Computing is by far the biggest relief to all the online businesses and services. They previously had to scale the number of servers offered to their service as the traffic was bound to increase with success. Just take this into perspective, your success is creating more hassle in your life and the additional load always made the companies skeptical and making them afraid that it might break down(in case of small organisations especially). Although with Cloud Computing one such service came into light which started its journey from the lower bottom and is finally at the top of its Game, I am talking about Amazon Web Services.

Although, before getting our hands on knowing Amazon Web Services let’s just understand some basics related to it. Also, why the on-demand era actually became a big relief to online businesses.

What are On-Demand Cloud Computing Services?

On-Demand Cloud Computing services is a format where you can access computational resources online without having a physical infrastructure installed in your basement(or anywhere you please). With the addition of cloud computing, now anyone can have access to resources such as server space, computational speed, data storage, and much more without having any physical infrastructure. These type of services can be divided into three different attributes which are Scalability, Pay-Per-Use, and Self Service. 

The good thing about these services is that they can be easily shared among the organisation without any issue. On-Demand Cloud Computing Services are capable of catering to the fluctuating needs of the industry and are more effective with fault tolerance. In fact, some of these services are so user-friendly that even a person with a non-technical background can handle them with just basic computer operational skills.

How On-Demand Cloud Computing Services saved us from the Biggest Issues?

Previously, for each and every organisation which were doing business online faced some major issues. These issues were:

• Checking the scalability to which the server needs to be deployed.
• Catering the cost of the servers that need to be deployed.
• Meet the Fluctuating need of the market.
• Getting enough online storage and power to execute a task properly.
• Regular maintenance of servers and providing an infrastructure for their proper functioning.

In order to have a better understanding, I’ll give you an example which will get you an idea why this was a million dollar idea. Initially, whenever you were off to create an online service, you always needed to deploy the equivalent amount of servers for great user experience. Although, suddenly one day your online service goes viral and the amount of people operating on it increases with a massive volume. Now the only solution to this would be deploying more number of servers to handle the traffic. This issue created several problems such as:

• Cost to deploy new servers for a small organisation.
• Degradation of User Experience because of inequivalent resources.
• Crashing of Website due to the exceeded number of traffic.
• Heating issues and infrastructure management.
• Meeting the computational power needed to scale the coming traffic.

With the inclusion of On-Demand Cloud Computing Services small organisations and app creators had the power to scale their resources. For instance, if the same scenario of the massive increase in traffic happened then this time the service will automatically allocate you new servers. This will not only save your website from crashing but will also help you spend an extra buck on purchasing a new server.

In On-Demand Cloud Computing, what you are basically doing is renting someone else’s resources. The algorithms that are made to bear fault instantly allocate more space and computational power. This benefits you in a couple of ways:

• You don’t have to do anything physically.
• You are only paying for the number of resources you are using.
• Enough flexibility to even scale down, if the resources are not in use.
• Relatively very cheap in comparison to deploying your own resources.
• Lastly, allows you independence from infrastructure management and maintenance of servers(resources).

With this, you can even amp the computational speed if you need a processor to do some heavy computational tasks. The scalability and flexibility that come with the concept was the sigh of relief for many big and small organisations as well as app creators.

What is Amazon Web Services aka AWS?

Amazon Web Services or AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon which started as an E-Commerce platform. AWS allows you to purchase resources on a subscription basis, it is basically an On-Demand Cloud Computing Platform. AWS rents its resources to small, big, and large organisations as well as individual app creators on a metered basis which means you will be paying for what you use. 

Amazon Web Services is capable of emulating the features of a real-computer which includes physical resources such as CPUs and GPUs for processing, localized RAM, hard-disk, SSD storage etc. One can even select the choice of operating system and also get various pre-loaded applications such as CRM, Web-Servers, Database, and much more.

Benefits of AWS for Mobile Apps

Besides the fact that Amazon Web Services or AWS is an exceptional service there are other reasons why a lot of app creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses prefers it over other services:

• Very Easy to Use: It is so easy to use that even a non-technical person can host its application or website on the service in no time. The service can even be used to host SaaS based application.
• Flexible: It is highly flexible in nature. With AWS, you are getting the option to select the Operating System, Programming Language, Database, Web Applications, and many other services. It basically gets you a virtual environment that can help you load any software as well as physical configuration you want or need. This flexibility makes the migration process very easy and also gets you different options for a different configuration.
• Reliability: This service is the backbone of their own billion-dollar e-commerce website i.e. Amazon.com. AWS provides an infrastructure that is scalable, reliable, and can easily secure global infrastructure. Also, there is a list of tech giants who have been using the service.
• Scalability and Great Performance: With the number of applications running in the backend such as AWS Tools, Auto Scaling, and Elastic Load Balancing, it is more than capable of backing an enormous infrastructure such as Amazon itself.
• Security: Amazon Web Services is one of the most secure services since they take an end-to-end networking model for there infrastructure. The security is employed using physical, operational, and software measures.
• Cost-Effectiveness: The service is pretty cost-effective since you are only paying for computational power. With AWS, you don’t have to bear any sort of longtime commitments or basically any type of commitment.

 

AWS Console

AWS or Amazon Web Services console is the heart of the whole system. It is the starting point from where you can access all the features that AWS has to offer. Amazon Web Services started with a basic amount of services which weren’t able to even fill a single page but now you have to scroll down a bit to see all the services that you can subscribe to. 

The console brings each and everything just after you SignUp to it. It is the core of where you can navigate to any service you wish to avail. The console can be accessed easily using a smartphone or a desktop. It is very easy to use and secure so no one has to worry. Here you can discover all the new services by AWS as they keep on updating their portfolio. One can even learn more on the console to do more. Now let’s talk about all the features that the AWS Console has for you to Offer.

AWS Console Features/List of Amazon Web Services

Compute:

• EC2: The Amazon EC2 provides you with a virtual environment which can be used for computing. This one will allow you to launch various instances such as different Operating Systems, Custom Environment for Applications, managing permissions for network access, and even running your own images on few or many systems.
• EC2 Container Service: Firstly, this one allows the usage of Docker. Amazon EC2 container service or ECS make your container highly scalable along with great performance using the different integrated services that comes with the package. The Amazon ECS service saves you from installing and operating a container for managing and scaling a cluster of data using a virtual machine.
• Elastic Beanstalk: The Amazon Elastic Beanstalk is basically used for deploying your website code. Once you upload your code using Beanstalk, the service automatically handle the deployment, provisioning of capacity, balancing the load, and auto-scaling the code for health monitors.
• Lambda: With Amazon Lambda, you are basically getting the computing speed. With the service, you see your code running without getting a provisioned server. 

Storage & Content Delivery:

• S3: Amazon S3 also known as Amazon Simple Storage Service lets you store your object providing you industry standard scalability, security, and performance. The service can be used by all sorts of organisations whether it be a small or a big one. The service can be used to store a variety of instances such as websites, mobile apps, backups, archives, enterprise apps, IoT apps, and analytics data. The service has been fine-tuned to organise your data.
• CloudFront: This service by Amazon is a CDN(Content Delivery Network) which lets you deliver content with high speeds. Amazon CloudFront can use a variety of services provided by AWS to fine-tune your experience.
• Elastic File System: This service is capable of creating a simple and elastic file system that can be used with ease. The service is basically for Linux based systems that use AWS cloud services and on-premise resources. This service makes you capable of thousands of EC2 instances while you are running your services.
• Glacier: Amazon Glacier is a low-cost cloud storage service for archiving and making back-ups for a longer time. The Glacier service is basically capable of making strict policies for database access.
• Snowball: The service is basically designed to transport a large chunk of data with a scaling of up to petabyte. Amazon Snowball saves you from high data transfer cost(incurred to setup the system), longer transfer times, and security norms. The service can be used to transfer files such as migration analytics data, libraries of Video, backups, and a lot more.
• Storage Gateway: This one can be used for disaster management. Suppose you have a situation then if you store your data using Amazon Storage Gateway then it allows your locally stored data to be saved without a mess. It is basically a hybrid storage system that lets you save your data remotely.

Database:

• RDS: Amazon RDS gives its customers a platform to employ a relational database. The service frees you from the headache of getting hardware, setting for database, patches, and especially set up. You are also getting a variety of databases to choose from such as Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database, and SQL Server.
• DynamoDB: It is very efficient, high-quality database management system. This one is capable of at least handling a trillion request per day and is even capable of handling 20 million requests per second. Amazon DynamoDB is basically a document database.
• ElastiCache:  Amazon ElastiCache is provided to the customer who needs a system for their data-driven system. The system is already fully managed using Redis and Memcached. This system allows you to access data fast and with very high efficiency. The system is often used for online games, financial services, Ad services etc.
• Redshift: Amazon Redshift is a data warehouse. The system is being used by many Fortune 500 companies including Lyft. It is one of the fastest warehouses available. With Redshift, one can use modern analytics for even predictive studies also the hybrid architecture is responsible for the high speeds.
• DMS: Amazon Data Migration Service can help you migrate your databases quickly to AWS. The service is very secure. The great thing about this one is that your current database will still be fully functional even during the time of migration. The service is capable of migrating data from the most widely used commercial databases and open source ones. You can also perform homogeneous migrations.

Networking:

• VPC: If you are in need of a virtual private network then AWS VPC is one thing that you can count upon. The VPC(Virtual Private Cloud) gets you an isolated private network from other AWS account. If you want then you can also get AWS EC2 services in your VPC.
• Direct Connect: The AWS Direct Connect lets you get a dedicated network for all your instances. You can localise it as per your needs by making it a private network connecting your AWS account with the data centre.
• Route 53: This one is basically a DNS(Domain Name Server) Web Service. The service is of high availability and scale. If you have an internet service then this is a highly effective way to route your customers to the service.

Developer Tools:

• CodeCommit: If your wish is to store your assets privately then this AWS CodeCommit is something you should be looking for. Some of these assets can include files like documents, source code, and binary files.
• CodeDeploy: It is a deployment service that makes the automation of the application easy. The Amazon CodeDeploy deploys instances to Amazon EC2, instances on-premises, lambda functions that are serverless, or the Amazon ECS Services.
• CodePipeline: Amazon CodePipeline is another delivery system that automates the process. This service can also be used to visualize and model the services that you need for the development of your software. 

Management Tools:

• CloudWatch: Amazon Cloudwatch is basically an analytics tool, although it is made for developers, system operators, site reliability engineers, and Managers in the industry. It gets you data and analytics about the application that has been deployed using AWS.
• CloudFormation: Amazon Cloudformation lets you model the whole of your infrastructure by simply using a text file to model and cloud environment. You can avail these resources anywhere in the world.
• CloudTrail: Amazon Cloudtrail is basically an assessment tool for your AWS account. With the Cloudtrail, you can get benefits like governance, auditing of operators, and risk analysis. 
• Config: Amazon Config lets you assess the configuration of your AWS Account. This one monitors the configuration and automates the current configuration comparing it with the configuration that is needed for the system. 
• OpsWork: By using the Amazon OpsWork you manage your configuration and provide instances for chef and puppet. Chef and Puppet are both platforms used for automation. These two platforms allow the code for automation configuration of the servers.
• Service Catalog: This one allows the management of catalogue to create or manage any kind of IT Service. The list of IT services that can be fitted into the Amazon Service Catalog is virtual machine images, servers, software, and databases that have a complete multi-tier architecture infrastructure.
• Trusted Advisor: This one is basically a guidance tool that lets you know about the best practices on the AWS tool.

Security & Identity:

• IAM: The AWS Identity and Access Management let you manage many services by AWS and the resources securely. By using the service, you can make groups and control the permissions to allow or deny any user.
• Directory Service: This one will let you use your own directory for use. The Amazon Directory Service lets you directory related workload and the resources that you can use to manage any directory. Since this one is actually made on the Microsoft Active Directory, therefore, no need to sync your directory to your active directory situated in the cloud.
• Inspector: The Amazon inspector is basically used to assess the security of your AWS account. This will check if you have followed the best practices and also the vulnerabilities that you may have to face.
• WAF: The Amazon Web Application Firewall is a program that protects your applications from getting exploited on the internet. This firewall makes sure that nobody is capable of exploiting the availability of the application, compromise the security, and consume excessive resources.
• Certificate Manager: The Amazon Certificate Manager basically provides you with certificates such as SSL/TLS that are responsible for services and security. These certificates secure the identity of your website on the internet as well as in a private network.

Analytics:

• EMR: The Amazon EMR service gets you a well-managed Hadoop framework which is capable of making your work easy, fast, and quite cost-effective. You can also run other frameworks such as Apache Spark, HBase, Presto, and Flink in EMR.  
• Data Pipeline: This is a service which allows you to process and move the data that is computed by the AWS to different storage devices. With the service it becomes really easy to access your data, store, transform, or process it.
• ElasticSearch Service: The Amazon ElasticSearch Service ingest the data that is generated and lets you visualise almost instantaneously. The service makes it easy for you to deploy, secure, and operate the elasticSearch service with zero downtime.
• Kinesis: The work of the Amazon Kinesis is to process real-time streaming data. This one lets you respond to new insights almost instantaneously. This one allows you to scale your data however it may be and choose the tools as per your flexibility and as per your requirement.
• Machine Learning: If you have been thinking of using Machine Learning for your application then this one lets you do it. By using the Amazon Machine Learning service, you are getting a pre-trained AI that serves as a computer vision, language, recommendations, and forecasting. It is needless to say that the service is given to you with analytics and security.

Internet Of Things:

• AWS IOT: If you have an IoT device to deploy then this one gets you the infrastructure that is needed. With the increase in the number of devices, this one is capable of scaling up and yes, it gets you the support of AI. 

Game Development:

• GameLift: Well, a multiplayer game can absolutely break a system. Also, if the infrastructure isn’t strong then the game experience is surely gonna lag. Well, with Amazon GameLift, one can have a dedicated server which is low on latency and capable of handling the sudden surge of the load.

Mobile Services:

• Mobile Hub: This is a complete service that can be employed from the very beginning of your app development cycle. This is helpful to the developers at any stage be it configuring, building, testing, and monitoring. 
• Cognito: Amazon Cognito as a service lets you add all the Sign-Up, Sign-In, and access controls that you integrate into your web app and mobile app very easily. You can also integrate various other social-media including platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.
• Device Farm: This one gets you a testing environment that helps you test your application on multiple devices and make out real-time issues. This will let you interact with your Android, iOS, and Web Apps and lets you share a video, screenshot, logs, and performance data to target the issues before you make your shipping.
• Mobile Analytics/ Pinpoint: Also, known by the name Amazon Pinpoint gets you powerful analytics tools, a global reach, and most importantly reliability. This collects all the data from your application and integrates your AWS Mobile SDK in your application. 
• SNS: Amazon Simple Notification Service gets you the freedom of sending notifications to each and every subscriber that you have to your service. 

Application Services:

• API Gateway:  This is an API management system that lets the developer to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure their APIs at the scale you want. With the Amazon API Gateway, you can use the Amazon Management Console, you are capable of creating a REST as well as WebSockets APIs that will let the applications to access data, logic from your business, and functionality from your backend services.
• AppStream: Amazon Appstream is an app streaming service. With AppStream, one can actually stream virtually any number of people around the globe. Appstream can let you manage your application and securely transfer it to any computer. With AppStream, you can also take advantage of the incredible AWS functionalities and network architecture. 
• CloudSearch: This one makes the search on your application simplified. With Amazon CloudSearch, one can make things really simple, manageable, and scalable. The service supports up to 34 languages in total.
• ElasticTranscoder: This service is basically to convert the original media into a format that is easily playable on the application. The Amazon ElastiTranscoder lets you convert the data suitable for playing in different media such as smartphones, tablets, and PCs.
• SES: The Amazon SES or Simple Email Service has been made for digital marketers to deal with their clients. With the service, one can send notifications as well as transactional Emails.
• SQS: The service can be used to send messages between different services of a similar application. The Amazon SQS is a message queuing service that lets you decouple and scale microservices, and other systems such as distributed system, Serverless applications.
• SWF: The Amazon SWF is a task coordinator as well as a full-fledged state tracker. With the service, the developers can easily build, run, and scale all the background jobs that have similar sequential steps. 

Enterprise Applications:

• WorkSpaces: A lot of people struggle with providing an environment for their employees to work in when it comes to infrastructure. With Amazon Workspace you can provide a cloud desktop to each of them. With the WorkSpace, you are getting a very fast, responsive desktop for your choice which one can access anytime, anywhere from any device that can support it.
• WorkDocs: This is a cloud-based docs creator. The content made on it can be shared easily on your AWS. The Docs that are made can be accessed from anywhere. The service makes it really easy to share, edit, and create content.
• WorkMail: With the Amazon WorkMail, the subscriber can easily access all their emails in the service itself. This one works as an option to securely manage your business emails and calendar service. 

What are the charges for Amazon Web Services?

As far as the pricing of Amazon Web Services is concerned then there are a variety of 160 cloud services that are offered by the company. The good thing about all those services is that you only pay for the services that you have availed and for the time you have used. There are basically no contracts or licenses that you might need for getting the Amazon Web Services in your hands. Below are the three models based on which Amazon charges you for its web services.

Pay-as-you-Go

This model lets you pay the desired amount of money you need to invest and not something based on prediction. In this case, whenever you require the services, you just pay for the designated amount without overcompensation. The system is based on the agile model and is responsive enough to scale your needs. This one saves you from spending extra while your requirements are relatively low.

Save When You Reserve

You will be benefited a little more if your payment is upfront. In this one, the larger is the payment, the more discount you will get. In this, you can invest your money in a reserved capacity while your savings can be as high as up to 75%. This model is generally used for instances such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS. The reserve of money you deposit is only used when there is a demand thus saving your money at the end.

Pay Less By Using More

There is basically a band of payment that can be availed by you where you pay for the amount of GBs you have used. The price of this data is almost equivalent to 2 cents per GB. Also, the more you use, the less bill you have to pay. 

They also have a monthly bill calculator as well as TCO calculator that will help you with the expenditures. In case, if you wish to see the individual pricing of all the services that are available for Amazon Web Services then click on the link here.

Success Stories related to Amazon Web Services

There have been a plethora of companies that are successful in their field and have availed the Amazon Web Services. Also, I am not talking about any company but giants who are at the top of their game. The list of companies goes on and on with names like 21st Century Fox, 91App, Abof, ABP News, Adobe System etc. In fact, there are so many small companies that gained the benefit of Amazon Web Services. The service helped them to kick start their businesses without even relying on physical infrastructure. 

There are absolutely tonnes of Amazon Web Services that can actually be used by any app creator. This even helps a basement developer to just plug his created app to the AWS system and get seamless hosting. The responsive scalability of the AWS lets many small scale organisation deploy their applications and only pay for the resources it took. We ourselves advice our clients and customers to take the benefit of Amazon Web Services. Yes, we make apps for mobile and desktop and have been doing it for almost 9 years. In case, if you have any queries regarding app development then you can contact us at [email protected]. We hope this article may have been of some help to you. Also, thank you for reading the article until the end.

Checkout Top AR (Agumented Reality) Apps in 2019, in our next blog post.