Getting Started with AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides on-demand computing resources and services in the cloud, with pay-as-you-go pricing. For example, you can run a server on AWS that you can log on to, configure, secure, and run just as you would a server that's sitting in front of you. For more information, see What is Cloud Computing?
Using AWS resources instead of your own is like purchasing electricity from a power company instead of running your own generator, and it provides many of the same benefits: capacity exactly matches your need, you pay only for what you use, economies of scale result in lower costs, and the service is provided by a vendor experienced in running large-scale networks.
What Can I Do with AWS?
You can use AWS to make it easier to build and manage your websites and applications. The following are some common uses for AWS:
Store public or private data.
Host a static website. These websites use client-side technologies (such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to display content that doesn't change frequently. A static website doesn't require server-side technologies (such as PHP and ASP.NET).
Host a dynamic website, or web app. These websites include classic three-tier applications, with web, application, and database tiers.
Support students or online training programs.
Process business and scientific data.
Handle peak loads.
Cloud Products
Amazon Web Services offers a broad set of global cloud-based products including compute, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, management tools, IoT, security and enterprise applications. These services help organizations move faster, lower IT costs, and scale. AWS is trusted by the largest enterprises and the hottest start-ups to power a wide variety of workloads including: web and mobile applications, game development, data processing and warehousing, storage, archive, and many others.
AWS Overview
AWS offers a broad set of services that help you move faster, lower your costs, and scale your applications. The following documentation provides a high-level overview of the concepts that you should understand before you get started with AWS.
Contents
Regions and Availability Zones
Security
AWS Product Categories
Regions and Availability Zones
Amazon has data centers in different areas of the world (for example, North America, Europe, and Asia). Correspondingly, AWS products are available to use in different regions. By placing resources in separate regions, you can design your website or app to be closer to specific customers or to meet legal or other requirements. Note that prices for AWS usage vary by region.
Each region contains multiple distinct locations called Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone is engineered to be isolated from failures in other Availability Zones, and to provide inexpensive, low-latency network connectivity to other zones in the same region. By placing resources in separate Availability Zones, you can protect your website or app from the failure of a single location.
AWS resources can be tied to a region or tied to an Availability Zone. Not every region or Availability Zone supports every AWS resource. When you view your resources, you'll only see the resources tied to the region you've specified. This is because regions are isolated from each other, and we don't replicate resources across regions automatically.
AWS provides a secure global infrastructure, plus a range of features that you can use to secure your data in the cloud. The following are highlights:
Physical access to AWS data centers is strictly controlled, monitored, and audited.
Access to the AWS network is strictly controlled, monitored, and audited.
You can manage the security credentials that enable users to access your AWS account using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). You can create fine-grained permissions to AWS resources and apply them to users or groups of users.
You can apply ACL-type permissions on your data and can also use encryption of data at rest.
You can set up a virtual private cloud (VPC), which is a virtual network that is logically isolated from other virtual networks in the AWS cloud. You can control whether the network is directly routable to the Internet.
You control and configure the operating system on your virtual server.
You can set up a security group, which acts as a virtual firewall to control the inbound and outbound traffic for your virtual servers.
You can specify a key pair when you launch your virtual server, which is used to encrypt your login information. When you log in to your virtual server, you must present the private key of the key pair to decrypt the login information.
For more information, see the following resources:
AWS Security Center
AWS Overview of Security Processes
AWS Security Best Practices
AWS Product Categories
AWS offers a broad set of services. To learn more about each AWS product category, see the following:
Compute and Networking Services
Storage and Content Delivery Services
Security and Identity Services
Database Services
Analytics Services
Application Services