AWS offers its users dozens of powerful services to offload their servers and streamline their business processes, among other things. Having a great variety of tools to choose from is undoubtedly helpful, but it may cause a problem of getting lost in all the options. On top of that, not everyone has the time to carefully read about every service and what it offers.
That’s why, in this article, we’re giving a comprehensive AWS services list that contains 20 most important, popular and useful ones as well as offering you a brief overview of how they can improve your business.
What is AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been a global leader in cloud computing ever since its release in 2006. This cloud service provider empowers businesses with a wide range of tools such as virtual servers, data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, just to name a few. AWS’s goal is to make the most of the innovative cloud technology and enable companies from all across the globe to boost their operational efficiency.
Top AWS Services List
The full AWS services list would go above a hundred of properties and is too long for the purposes of this article. That’s why we’ve listed the 20 most popular and useful ones which are as follows:
Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2 enables you to quickly install and then efficiently manage virtual servers in the cloud. With this service, you’ll also have total control over your computing resources – you can select any instance types, operating systems, and security configurations that are most suitable for you.
Amazon S3
Amazon S3 is a secure object storage service that is mainly used to store and retrieve data. In addition to being great for backup and restoration, data archiving, content dissemination, and data lakes, it also provides cost-effective storage solutions and ensures high durability.
AWS Lambda
AWS Lambda allows you to can run your code on without having to worry about servers since it makes infrastructure management easier and supports event-driven apps. You can concentrate on creating code while Lambda handles scaling and running it in response to events or triggers.
Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS is a managed database service that enables easy setup and scaling of relational databases. It automates basic activities like backups, patching, and monitoring and supports well-known database engines like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle.
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that powers low-latency, scalable, and globally distributed data storage. It is designed to run high-performance applications, and it can easily upscale to deal with millions of requests per second while providing quick responses.
Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront is a global content delivery network that accelerates content distribution, improves user experience, and offers cutting-edge security measures. It does its job by offloading the origin server and reducing latency by storing material at edge locations throughout the world.
Amazon VPC
Amazon VPC enables you to build virtual private networks, giving you control over network configuration and securing connectivity options. Among other things, you can create secure connections to on-premises networks using VPN or AWS Direct Connect (more on that service below), as well as specify IP ranges and construct route tables.
AWS Direct Connect
AWS Direct Connect creates a dedicated network link between your on-site data centers and AWS. Assuring safe access to your resources and easing data transfer, backup, and disaster recovery between your on-premises and AWS environments, it offers a private, dependable, and low-latency connection.
Amazon SQS
Amazon SQS is a managed message queuing service that allows distributed systems to be decoupled as well as them to communicate asynchronously. It enables dependable message delivery, making distributed systems’ components to function independently and scale well.
Amazon SNS
Amazon SNS is a messaging service used to streamline pub/sub communication with emails, SMS, HTTP, and push notifications. Real-time alerts and event-driven systems allow you to publish messages to topics and have subscribers receive them.
Amazon Glacier
Amazon Glacier is a safe and affordable storage solution for long-term data retention and backup. It offers features like data encryption, compliance capabilities, and affordable storage options for your archive needs, making it excellent for data that isn’t accessed very regularly.
Amazon Elastic Beanstalk
AWS Elastic Beanstalk is designed to improve the effectiveness of application deployment and management. It automates infrastructure provisioning, capacity scaling, and load balancing so that you can concentrate on developing code and boost the deployment of your application.
AWS Elastic Load Balancing
AWS Elastic Load Balancing enhances availability and scalability by automatically splitting up incoming application traffic among several targets. In order to give your consumers a seamless experience, it optimizes resource use and makes sure your applications can manage traffic spikes.
AWS Auto Scaling
AWS Auto Scaling automatically modifies the volume of used resources based on predetermined conditions. By dynamically scaling resources to meet the requirements of your application, it ensures optimal resource use, high availability, and cost-effectiveness.
Amazon EMR
Amazon EMR is a fully managed solution for the deployment and management of Apache Hadoop and Spark clusters, and is designed to make big data processing simpler. It handles cluster configuration, scaling, and integration with other AWS services, allowing you to effectively analyze huge datasets.
AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation allows you to use code to provision and manage your AWS infrastructure. It automates the creation and maintenance of complex settings in a consistent and repeatable manner by using declarative templates to define resources and configurations.
AWS CloudTrail
AWS CloudTrail offers thorough visibility into user activity and API usage within your AWS accounts. You can follow changes, look into security incidents, and make sure you are in compliance with auditing and governance requirements thanks to its recording of all API calls and events.
AWS CloudWatch
AWS CloudWatch is a monitoring service that keeps track of log files, important metrics and generates conditional alarms, facilitating proactive management of your AWS resources. You can monitor, diagnose, and optimize your environment with its real-time insights into resource use, application performance, and operational health.
AWS Config
AWS Config continuously tracks and records the configuration information of your AWS resources. It enables you to monitor changes, address operational problems, guarantee security and compliance throughout your AWS environment, and maintain a consistent configuration state.
AWS Elastic File System
AWS Elastic File System offers shared scalable file storage for your EC2 instances. It automatically adjusts capacity based on demand and makes managing file storage easier. It’s appropriate for a variety of use cases, such as content repositories, web serving, and big data analytics.
How to Choose the Best AWS Services for Your Business Needs
First and foremost, clearly formulate your business needs and goals. Analyze the workloads you handle, the size of your operations, and your storage requirements. Second, pay close attention to the pricing structures and cost implications related to each of the AWS components. Make sure the services you choose are long-term and financially feasible for your company. Lastly, before committing to specific services, take your time to study the AWS whitepapers and user guides that provide architecture best practices and reference architectures.
Conclusion
AWS offers many powerful services the variety of which can be overwhelming. But, ultimately, the AWS components you choose to proceed with will depend on your needs. Amazon EC2 is a must-have for basic cloud storage functionality, while AWS Lambda is great for creating apps and Amazon VPC is there to help you create a secure virtual private network – and we’re barely even scratching the surface with these.
Understand what you need, consider the cost implications, invest time in reading AWS guides and make an informed decision on what services to use. At the same time, if at any point you struggle with the choice or the implementation of the chosen services, don’t hesitate to contact a team of AWS experts like OMI.