You might have heard about AWS some time. In this post, we’re just cover what AWS is and some of the impressive features that it provides and why you should learn it now!
What is AWS?
AWS or Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform provided by Amazon. If you are confused about Cloud or have no idea about it, you can always check our article on what is Cloud Computing.
AWS provides you with IAAS, PAAS, SAAS and DAAS services. All you need to do is, sign up and tell them what you want. They’ll do all the tedious and mundane stuff for you and bring it to you. Now you can just configure it and start working.
What does AWS do?
EC2
- Need a server ASAP? Amazon EC2 has got you covered.
- Enter your OS, the memory you want, hard drives, the networking rules and your server would be configured for you within minutes.
- Need a private lab for practicing? Use Amazon VPC with EC2 and build it yourself in less than 10 minutes,
Storage
- Have tonnes of data to store/handle, Amazon’s S3 bucket will help you. Just store your data and see the beautiful things you can do with it.
- Have a website and need to speed it up? Let Amazon CloudFront take care of all the static resources of your site and deliver it at a lightning speed.
Database
- Need a fast and smooth DB for your application? Check out DynamoDB, a fully managed cloud database that is consistent and has a latency of fewer than 10 seconds.
- Not satisfied with your Database Server? Move it to cloud securely with no downtime using Amazon Database Migration Service.
- Once you have your DB on the AWS cloud, scale it efficiently using Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
Networking
- Build your network sitting at your home using AWS Virtual Private Cloud. Configure the security rules, allow and deny particular ports, select your subnet and Internet gateway.
- Having troubles with load balancing your servers? Check out AWS Elastic Load Balancer and distribute your incoming traffic across all your servers with a few clicks.
- Need a direct secure and fast connection to your other branches? Use AWS Direct Connect, which gives you a dedicated connection between your network and one of AWS direct connection location.
- Having DNS issues with your hosting provider? Try AWS Route 53, a DNS web service which lets you easily route traffic over the internet to your endpoint/application/application’s endpoints.
Mobile Services:
- Have an app idea? No need to hire a developer. Use AWS Mobile SDK and build scalable apps yourself.
- Want to try out your application in multiple devices? Try AWS Mobile App Testing and test your app in parallel against an extensive collection of physical devices in the AWS Cloud
How much will it cost me?
You must be like, ‘Oh all of this are excellent tools, but I don’t have enough money. I am a student. I am broke. I am in debt.’
I have been using AWS for a year now, and by that, I mean using it for creating multiple instances and deploying applications for my school assignment. Every month it costs me less than ten bucks.
How?
Most of my work was on EC2 and VPC. For EC2 the billing is as follows:
750 hours per month of Linux, RHEL, or SLES t2.micro instance usage
750 hours per month of Windows t2.micro instance usage
For example, run 1 instance x 1 month or 2 instances x half a month
Expires 12 months after sign-up.
Usually, it would’ve been free, but since I had multiple instances, it used to charge me around $5 to $9.
If you’re just learning and want to try out some things, go for it. It’s free for the first year, and you can do a lot with it.
We are planning to put a whole section where you can create an application server, database server, connect them and deploy a Java application on the cloud.
So until all of that is ready, just keep experimenting and don’t forget to turn off your instance. It’s pay per use. If you leave it on, even though you’re not using it, it’ll charge you because Amazon still thinks there is some process going on in the instance.