AWS: What is it and do you need to use it?

AWS is already the largest and most popular cloud in the world. The reason is simple – it offers a tremendous amount of possibilities. At the same time, cloud services from Amazon are more extensive compared to competing offers. This allows you to better configure the set of services that you will use on a regular basis. At the same time, AWS gives access to many ready-made solutions. It is much easier to solve, for example, typical problems that may arise during the use of the cloud.

You can use ready-made solutions for, among other things:

• databases,
• mass memory,
• content delivery networks.

What are the prices of the service in AWS?

The undoubted advantage of Amazon Web Services is that you only pay for the services you use. On the other hand, determining the exact amount you will have to pay can be complicated. The reason is simple – in AWS, prices for each service are divided into different categories. Therefore, before you start using the selected range of services, you should evaluate the service.

A special tool in the form of the AWS calculator is intended for this. In this way, you can determine the exact cost of using the selected services. You should remember that the profitability of using AWS depends on what you expect from your cloud software. This is a solution that will work when you want to take advantage of the easy and quick network configuration. Reserved instances are cheaper so you can save some money that way (we undertake to pay for them for a minimum of 1 year without the possibility of cancellation).

General purpose cloud services

The basic service available in AWS is Elastic Compute Cloud. It’s a general-purpose cloud that allows you to use EC2 servers, called instances. They allow you to set up different configurations to use different types of EC2. Thanks to this, you can tailor specific solutions to various problems.

Here are the most important advantages of AWS:

• No need to rent servers for a long time,
• EC2 instances can be deployed locally,
• Provides automatic EC2 scaling (once configured).

AWS services mean great flexibility. You can easily increase productivity when there is more traffic and, at the same time, safely reduce it when there is less traffic.

AWS and data hosting

If you decide to use AWS, you can choose from three basic versions of data storage. The most popular solution is Elastic Block Storage – the default option in EC2 instances. Their purpose is one thing – they are hard drives in the cloud. They offer the ability to move them between different instances. Meanwhile, Simple Storage Service is designed to store individual files. Its advantage is that the prices for storing more data are lower. The most expensive solution is the Elastic File System. It is a scalable cloud NAS with structure and directories. This is an option that you should use when you really need it. This is not only because of the cost, but also because the ESF is slower.

What does AWS offer for load balancing?

Multiple servers can be used to secure network performance. In AWS, load balancing systems allow you to equalize the traffic between different instances. The advantage of this solution is that the configuration of the servers is not difficult.

The pricing of the service of traffic balancing systems is based on the calculation of fees from:

• new connections,
• active connections,
• processed GB,
• reviews of established rules. 

Charges are billed every hour. To calculate costs, you must take into account each resource that has been used.

Relative database from AWS

Amazon also offers the ability to use relational database services. The advantage of this solution available in AWS is that they are easy to scale. All thanks to access to load balancing systems, as well as support for read replicas.

RDS can handle different types of databases, for example:

• MySQL,
• PostgreSQL,
• Aurora, the base from Amazon.

If you choose the Aurora version of the database, you can count on greater speed. It is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Amazon Content Delivery Network

AWS means access, also to CDN. The service called Cloudfront is a solution that will work when you need to deliver a lot of static content to many users. If you use Amazon’s content delivery networks, you can reduce the cost of content delivery compared to EC2. Importantly, the data sent from S3 to Cloudfront does not require any additional fees.