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Getting Started with AWS
Getting started with AWS can be daunting. For beginners, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. This article introduces readers to AWS, the benefits it offers, and lists the key services available to users.
What is Cloud Computing?
Before talking about AWS, it is important to first define cloud computing. Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the internet. Cloud computing enables users to access resources such as computing power, storage, and databases without the burdens of buying, owning, and maintaining physical infrastructure.
What is AWS?
Amazon Web Services(AWS) is the world leader in the cloud computing sector, with over 16 years of experience catering to the needs of businesses across industries. It has become the world’s most broadly adopted cloud platform with millions of customers ranging from individuals and startups to large enterprises and government agencies.
What are the Benefits of AWS?
Benefit #1 – Cost-effective
With AWS’s pay-as-you-go pricing model, users only pay for the resources they need and only for the time they are in use. This makes cost management straightforward, predictable, and easy to track. Users get to avail the latest IT resources without having to bear the costs of procuring, installing, and maintaining infrastructure.
Benefit #2 – Flexibility
AWS gives its users complete control and choice of OS, programming language, web application platform, database, and other services. The flexibility provided by AWS services offers seamless migration of existing applications to the cloud, while also opening up the possibility of building new solutions.
Benefit #3 – Scalability and Elasticity
AWS makes scaling effortless for its users. With tools such as Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancing, applications can be scaled up or down based on demand. Backed by AWS’s robust and immense global infrastructure, users always have immediate access to almost limitless resources when they need them.
Benefits #4 – More Services & Features
Compared to other cloud providers, AWS provides a more robust pallet of services and features to choose from. Included in these services are conventional infrastructure technologies such as compute and storage, but there are also services that take advantage of burgeoning technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and IoT.
Benefit #5 – Reliability & Performance
AWS’s unmatched experience, reliability, and performance provide a solid foundation for users to depend on and build robust and sustainable applications at any scale. Security or performance concerns are minimized, allowing users to focus their time on building optimized environments.
Benefit #6 – Security
AWS’s core infrastructure has been built to satisfy the security requirements of military, global banks, and other high-profile organizations. AWS supports 98 security standards and compliance certifications. All services within AWS that store customer data offer data encryption.
What Services Does AWS Offer?
This section lists the major categories of AWS services.
Note: This is not an exhaustive list. For a complete and up-to-date list of AWS services, readers can visit the AWS Cloud Products Page.
COMPUTE
| Type | Service | Usage |
| Instances (Virtual machines) | Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute) | Secure and resizable compute capacity (virtual servers) in the cloud |
| Amazon EC2 Spot Instances | Run fault-tolerant workloads at massively discounted prices | |
| Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling | Automatically add or remove compute capacity to meet changes in demand | |
| Amazon Lightsail | Easy-to-use cloud platform offering everything needed to build an application or website | |
| Amazon Batch | Fully-managed batch processing at any scale | |
| Containers | Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service) | Highly secure, reliable, and scalable way to run containers |
| Amazon ECS Anywhere | Run containers on customer-managed infrastructure | |
| Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) | Easily store, manage, and deploy container images | |
| Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) | Fully managed Kubernetes service | |
| Amazon EKS Anywhere | Create and operate Kubernetes clusters on on-premise infrastructure | |
| AWS Fargate | Serverless compute for containers | |
| AWS App Runner | Build and run containerized applications on a fully-managed service | |
| Serverless | AWS Lambda | Run code without thinking about servers. Pay only for the compute time consumed |
| Edge & Hybrid | AWS Outposts | Run AWS infrastructure and services on-premises for a truly consistent hybrid experience |
| AWS Snow Family | Collect and process data on rugged or disconnected edge environments | |
| AWS Wavelength | Deliver ultra-low latency application for 5G devices | |
| VMWare Cloud on AWS | Preferred service for all vSphere workloads to rapidly extend and migrate to the cloud | |
| AWS Local Zones | Run latency-sensitive applications closer to end-users | |
| Cost & Capacity Management | AWS Savings Plan | Flexible pricing model that provides savings of up to 72% on AWS compute usage |
| AWS Compute Optimizer | Recommends optimal AWS compute resources for workloads to reduce costs and improve performance | |
| AWS Elastic Beanstalk | Easy-to-use service for deploying and scaling web applications and services | |
| EC2 Image Builder | Build and maintain secure Linux or Windows Server images | |
| Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) | Automatically distribute incoming application traffic across multiple targets |
AWS offers the broadest and deepest functionality for compute among all cloud service providers. The following table provides a list of AWS compute services.
STORAGE
AWS storage is used by millions of customers across the globe to increase agility and reduce storage costs. The following table provides a list of AWS storage services.
| Service | Usage |
| Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) | Object storage built to retrieve any amount of data from anywhere |
| Amazon S3 Glacier | Low-cost archive storage in the cloud |
| Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) | EC2 block storage volumes |
| Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) | Fully-managed file system for EC2 |
| Amazon FSx | Launch, run, and scale feature-rich and highly-performant file systems with just a few clicks |
| AWS Backup | Centralized backup across AWS services |
| AWS Snow Family | Physical edge computing and storage devices for rugged or disconnected environments |
| AWS Storage Gateway | Hybrid storage integration |
| AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) | Scalable, cost-effective application recovery to AWS |
DATABASE
AWS offers fully-managed purpose-built database services supporting diverse data models including relational, key-value, in-memory, ledger, document, time series, graph, and wide column databases. The following table provides a list of AWS database services.
| Service | Usage |
| Amazon DynamoDB | Managed NoSQL database |
| Amazon Aurora | High performance managed relational database |
| Amazon Redshift | Fast, simple, and cost-effective data warehousing |
| Amazon RDS | Managed relational database service for MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and MariaDB |
| Amazon ElastiCache | In-memory caching service |
| Amazon DocumentDB | Fully managed document database |
| Amazon Neptune | Fully managed graph database service |
| Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) | Managed Cassandra-compatible database |
| Amazon Timestream | Fully managed time series database |
| Amazon MemoryDB for Redis | Redis-compatible, durable, in-memory database service for ultra-fast performance |
CONTAINERS
Containers are small packages of software that contain the necessary elements to run in any environment. AWS offers multiple tools for developing applications with containers including container registry, orchestration, and compute services. Users can securely store and manage their container images, leverage orchestration that manages when and where containers run, and use flexible and powerful compute engines to power containers. The following table provides a list of AWS container services.
| Service | Usage |
| Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) | Highly secure, reliable, and scalable way to run containers |
| Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) | The most trusted way to run Kubernetes |
| AWS Elastic Container Registry (ECR) | Easily store, manage, and deploy container images |
| AWS Fargate | Serverless compute for containers |
| AWS App2Container | Containerize and migrate existing applications |
| AWS Copilot | The easiest way to launch and manage containerized applications on AWS |
| Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS | Managed OpenShift in the cloud |
DEVELOPER TOOLS
AWS developer tools help build, test, and deploy applications with ease. The following table provides a list of AWS developer tools.
| Service | Usage |
| AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) | Line Interface Unified tool to manage AWS services |
| AWS CodeBuild | Build and test code |
| AWS CodeCommit | Store code in private Git repositories |
| AWS CodeDeploy | Automate code deployments |
| AWS CodeArtifact | Secure, scalable, and cost-effective artifact management for software development |
| AWS CodePipeline | Release software using continuous delivery |
| AWS CodeStar | Develop and deploy AWS applications |
| AWS CloudShell | Command line access to AWS resources and tools directly from a browser |
| AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) | Model cloud infrastructure using code |
| AWS Cloud Control API | Manage AWS and third-party cloud infrastructure with consistent APIs |
| AWS Cloud9 | Write, run, and debug code on a cloud IDE |
| Amazon CodeGuru | Find your most expensive lines of code |
| AWS Device Farm | Test Android, iOS, and web apps on real devices in the AWS cloud |
| Amazon Corretto | Production-ready distribution of OpenJDK |
| AWS Tools and SDKs | Tools and SDKs for AWS |
| AWS Fault Injection Simulator | Improve resiliency and performance with controlled experiments |
| AWS X-Ray | Analyze and debug applications |
| Amazon CodeCatalyst (Preview) | Unified software development service for faster development and delivery on AWS |
MEDIA SERVICES
AWS offers one of the most comprehensive and functional range of media services to help media companies create, transform, and deliver high-quality digital content. The following table provides a list of AWS media services.
| Service | Usage |
| AWS Elemental MediaPackage | Video origination and packaging |
| AWS Elemental MediaConvert | Convert file-based video content |
| AWS Elemental MediaLive | Convert live video content |
| AWS Elemental MediaConnect | Reliable and secure live video transport |
| AWS Elemental MediaTailor | Video personalization and monetization |
| AWS Elemental MediaStore | Media storage and simple HTTP origin |
| Amazon Interactive Video Service (IVS) | Build engaging live stream experiences |
| Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Easy-to-use scalable media transcoding |
| AWS Elemental Appliances & Software | On-premises media solutions |
| Amazon Kinesis Video Streams | Process and analyze video streams |
| Amazon Nimble Studio | Accelerate content creation in the cloud |
BUSINESS
AWS offers a selection of services that facilitate business operations. The following table provides a list of AWS business services.
| Service | Usage |
| Amazon Chime | Frustration-free meetings, video calls, and chat |
| Amazon Chime SDK | Real-time messaging, audio, video, and screen sharing |
| AWS Wickr | Protect enterprise communication with end-to-end encryption |
| Amazon WorkDocs | Secure enterprise document storage and sharing |
| Amazon WorkMail | Secure email and calendaring |
| Amazon Connect | Omnichannel cloud contact center |
| Alexa for Business | Empower your organization with Alexa |
| Amazon HoneyCode | Build mobile & web apps without programming |
| Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | High-scale inbound and outbound email |
| Amazon Pinpoint | Multichannel marketing communications |
| AWS Supply Chain (Preview) | Mitigate risks and lower costs with an ML-powered supply chain application |
SECURITY
AWS offers a wide range of security services to help users protect their data and cloud environment of unwanted exposures. The following table provides a list of AWS security services.
| Service | Usage |
| AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) | Securely manage access to services and resources |
| AWS Certificate Manager | Provision and manage SSL/TLS certificates with AWS services and connected resources |
| AWS Detective | Investigate potential security issues |
| Amazon Security Lake (Preview) | Automatically centralize your security data with a few clicks |
| AWS Network Firewall | Deploy network security across your Amazon VPCs with just a few clicks |
| AWS Artifact | On-demand access to AWS’ compliance reports |
| AWS Shield | DDoS protection |
| Amazon Cognito | Identify management for your apps |
| AWS Firewall Manager | Central management of firewall rules |
| AWS Audit Manager | Continuously audit your AWS usage to simplify how you assess risk and compliance |
| AWS Secrets manager | Rotate, manage, and retrieve secrets |
| Amazon Verified Permissions (Preview) | Fine-grained permissions and authorization for your applications |
| AWS Directory Service | Host and manage active directory |
| AWS Security Hub | Unified security and compliance center |
| AWS WAF | Filter malicious web traffic |
| Amazon Key Management Service (KMS) | Managed creation and control of encryption keys |
| AWS CloudHSM | Hardware-based key storage for regulatory compliance |
| AWS Single Sign-On (SSO) | Cloud single sign-on (SSO) service |
| AWS Resource Access Manager | Simple, secure service to share AWS resources |
| Amazon GuardDuty | Managed threat detection service |
| Amazon Inspector | Automated and continual vulnerability management for Amazon EC2 and Amazon ECR |
| Amazon Macie | Discover and protect your sensitive data at scale |
DATA ANALYTICS
AWS provides a broad selection of data analytics services to help businesses address all their data analytics needs including data storage, data movement, data lakes, big data analytics, streaming analytics, business intelligence, and machine learning (ML). The following table provides a list of AWS analytics services.
| Service | Usage |
| AWS Glue | Simple, scalable, and serverless data integration |
| Amazon Athena | Query data in S3 using SQL |
| AWS Data Pipeline | Orchestration service for periodic, data-driven workflows |
| Amazon DataZone (Preview) | Unlock data across organizational boundaries with built-in governance |
| Amazon FinSpace | Store, catalog, prepare, and analyze financial industry data in minutes |
| AWS Lake Formation | Build a secure data lake in days |
| Amazon EMR | Hosted Hadoop framework |
| Amazon CloudSearch | Managed search service |
| Amazon Kinesis | Analyze real-time video and data streams |
| AWS DataExchange | Find, subscribe to, and use third-party data in the cloud |
| Amazon QuickSight | Fast business analytics service |
| Amazon Managed Streaming for Apache Kafka (MSK) | Fully managed Apache Kafka service |
| Amazon OpenSearch Service | Search, visualize, and analyze up to petabytes of text and unstructured data |
| AWS Clean Rooms (Preview) | Match, analyze, and collaborate on datasets without sharing or revealing underlying data |
| Amazon Redshift | Fast, simple, cost-effective data warehousing |
MACHINE LEARNING
AWS offers the deepest and most purpose-built set of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services. The following table provides a list of AWS machine learning services.
| Service | Usage |
| Amazon Monitron | Reduce unplanned equipment downtime with predictive maintenance and machine learning |
| TensorFlow on AWS | Open-source machine intelligence library |
| Amazon Lookout for Metrics | Automatically detect anomalies in metrics and identify their root cause |
| Amazon DevOps Guru | ML-powered cloud operations service to improve application availability |
| Amazon SageMaker | Build, train, and deploy machine learning models at scale |
| Amazon Lex | Build voice and text chatbots |
| AWS DeepComposer | ML enabled musical keyboard |
| Amazon Textract | Extract text and data from documents |
| Amazon HealthLake | Securely store, transform, quert, and analyze health data in minutes |
| AWS Deep Learning Containers | Docker images for deep learning |
| Amazon Personalize | Build real-time recommendations into your applications |
| Amazon Lookout for Vision | Spot product defects using computer vision |
| Amazon Fraud Detector | Detect more online fraud faster |
| AWS Panorama | Improve your operations with computer vision at the edge |
| Amazon Kendra | Reinvent enterprise search with ML |
| Amazon Forecast | Increase forecast accuracy using machine learning |
| Amazon CodeGuru | Find your most expensive lines of code |
| AWS Inferentia | Machine learning inference chip |
| AWS DeepLens | Deep learning enabled video camera |
| Amazon Transcribe | Automatic speech recognition |
| Apache MXNet on AWS | Scalable open-source deep learning framework |
| AWS Deep Learning AMIs | Deep learning on Amazon EC2 |
| Amazon Translate | Natural and fluent language translation |
| Amazon Elastic Inference | Deep learning inference acceleration |
| Amazon Augmented AI | Easily implement human review of ML predictions |
| Amazon Lookout for Equipment | Detect abnormal equipment behavior by analyzing sensor data |
| PyTorch on AWS | Flexible open-source machine learning framework |
| AWS DeepRacer | Autonomous 1/18th scale race car, driven by ML |
| Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth | Build accurate ML training datasets |
| Amazon Rekognition | Analyze image and video |
| Amazon Polly | Turn text into life-like speech |
| Amazon Comprehend | Discover insights and relationships in text |
| Amazon Omics | Transform omics data into insights |
| Amazon Bedrock | Build and scale generative AI-based applications using Foundation Models (FMs) |
BLOCKCHAIN
AWS provides two key blockchain services that help simplify and accelerate the development of blockchain and ledger applications.
| Service | Usage |
| Amazon Managed Blockchain | Create and manage scalable blockchain networks |
| Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) | Fully managed ledger database |
Conclusion & Where to Get Started
AWS has cemented its position as the clear market leader in the cloud computing sector. An increasing number of companies across multiple industries are recognizing the importance of the accessibility, flexibility, and cost benefits that AWS provides.
Readers interested in learning more about AWS can visit the Getting Started with AWS guide to gain additional insights, deploy their first applications, and gain access to the AWS community.
Before migrating to the AWS cloud, companies may need to assess whether they have the necessary expertise to effectively navigate the world of AWS and the vast range of possibilities it offers. The easiest solution for most businesses is to partner with an AWS-recognized partner like TrackIt to ensure that the right solution is deployed with the right choice of services that match their exact requirements.
About TrackIt
TrackIt is an international AWS cloud consulting, systems integration, and software development firm headquartered in Marina del Rey, CA.
We have built our reputation on helping media companies architect and implement cost-effective, reliable, and scalable Media & Entertainment workflows in the cloud. These include streaming and on-demand video solutions, media asset management, and archiving, incorporating the latest AI technology to build bespoke media solutions tailored to customer requirements.
Cloud-native software development is at the foundation of what we do. We specialize in Application Modernization, Containerization, Infrastructure as Code and event-driven serverless architectures by leveraging the latest AWS services. Along with our Managed Services offerings which provide 24/7 cloud infrastructure maintenance and support, we are able to provide complete solutions for the media industry.
