What Is AWS?

What Is AWS

Date First Published: 14th June 2022

Topic: Computer Networking

Subtopic: Network Services

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 6/10

Learn more about what AWS is in this article.

Stands for Amazon Web Services. AWS is a cloud computing platform that was developed by Amazon, Inc. It was officially launched in 2002 with a few services. AWS provides companies and individuals with server storage space and APIs on a pay-as-you-go basis, where fees are based on a combination of features, such as hardware, operating system, software, and networking features. The pricing for each service is unique. AWS has 38 data centres all around the world and as of now, it is used by millions of customers.

Services

AWS consist of over 200 different products and services. These include:

  • Computing
  • Storage
  • Networking
  • Database
  • Analytics
  • Application services
  • Deployment management
  • Machine learning
  • Mobile
  • Developer tools
  • IoT tools.

AWS has introduced additional features that automatically scan for security risks. Amazon Inspector analyses an AWS environment for vulnerabilities that have a negative impact on security and compliance. Machine learning technology is used by Amazon Macie to provide protection for sensitive cloud data.

AWS includes an AWS Management Console, which is a browser-based graphical user interface that can be used for the management of resources in cloud computing and security credentials. In addition, AWS includes services that provide encryption and enhanced security, such as SSL and TLS certificates as well as filtering of harmful traffic to web applications and protection against DDoS attacks.

Notable AWS services include:

  • Amazon CloudFront
  • Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2)
  • Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)
  • Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)
  • Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
  • Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
  • Amazon SimpleDB
  • Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC)

AWS offers a variety of AI model development and delivery platforms. The Amazon AI suite of tools includes Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, and Amazon Rekognition. It also provides technology for developers to create apps that rely on machine learning technology and complex algorithms.

History

In 2002, AWS was officially launched with a few services. Two years later, the first publicly available AWS service, called Amazon SQS was launched in 2004. AWS was relaunched in 2006 with the aim of introducing two more services, called Amazon S3 cloud storage, and EC2. S3 and EC2 were launched in Europe in 2009 and the Elastic Block Store as well as Amazon CloudFront were released and became part of AWS.

Amazon developed the AWS Marketplace in 2012 to support and grow the developing group of Amazon Web Services products from third-party providers who have built their own services in addition to the Amazon Web Services platform. Customers of Amazon Web Services can use the AWS Marketplace to search, compare, and start using AWS software and technical services.


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