Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides scalable, reliable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. AWS's offerings are extensive, spanning from basic storage and computing power to sophisticated machine learning tools and analytics.
History
- 2006: AWS officially launched with offerings like Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). These services allowed users to store data and run applications in the cloud.
- 2008: AWS introduced Amazon CloudFront, a content delivery network.
- 2010: The Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) was introduced, providing managed database services.
- 2012: AWS began offering Amazon Redshift, a data warehouse product.
- 2014: AWS announced AWS Lambda, allowing users to run code without provisioning or managing servers.
- 2016: AWS released Amazon Alexa for Business, expanding into the smart assistant market.
- 2018: AWS Outposts were introduced, bringing AWS infrastructure and services to virtually any data center, colocation space, or on-premises facility.
- 2020: AWS launched Amazon Honeycode, a no-code app builder.
Services Overview
- Compute: EC2, AWS Fargate, Lambda, and Amazon Lightsail.
- Storage: S3, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), and Amazon Glacier for archiving.
- Databases: RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Neptune for graph databases.
- Analytics: Redshift, Amazon Kinesis for real-time data streaming, and Amazon EMR for big data processing.
- Machine Learning: Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Rekognition, and Amazon Lex for building conversational interfaces.
- Security, Identity, & Compliance: AWS Identity and Access Management, AWS Shield, and AWS WAF (Web Application Firewall).
Context and Impact
AWS has become a leader in cloud computing, with a significant market share due to its comprehensive services, global infrastructure, and continuous innovation. It supports a wide array of industries from startups to large enterprises, government organizations, and educational institutions. AWS's pay-as-you-go model allows users to scale up or down based on demand, reducing the need for large capital investments in hardware.
External Resources
Similar Topics or Related Concepts