What is Amazon Web Services?

Amazon web service is an online platform that provides users with scalable and cost-effective cloud computing solutions. It helps businesses scale and flourish by providing on-demand activities such as computational power, content delivery, database storage, and more. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the most widely used cloud platform in the world. 

They’re trusted by the largest enterprises and hottest start-ups around the world as they power their infrastructure with AWS’s services for computing, storage, databases, analytics networking, mobile developer tools, management tools, and IoT security enterprise applications that can be used in tandem or separately depending on your needs.

Top 7+ Benefits of Amazon Web Services for businesses

Ease of Use

AWS is simple to use because the platform was created with quick and secure access. Users have complete control over their data and can make changes whenever and anywhere they choose. AWS provides all of the necessary information, documentation, and video tutorials to assist you in learning how to use all of its services.

AWS seems like the perfect solution for anyone wanting to take care of their own information technology needs without having an in-house server. They offer a well-documented set of web services APIs that allow you to access your account, and they help eliminate much-needed headaches such as deploying programs or software yourself. 

When you’re using a cloud platform, you don’t have to think about physical server space, networking infrastructure, or running hardware upgrades. You simply pay by the hour as the cloud service provider makes sure your servers and networking are always ready and you pay the amount required per hour to use the service.

Adaptability

AWS allows enterprises to easily scale up or down, allowing them to keep up with changing needs and volumes. AWS also offers a virtual environment that allows businesses to load the services and applications they require for their application. Organizations can use AWS to customize their programming language, operating system, web application platform, database, and other resources.

There’s no limit to how much you can use because AWS is an infrastructure on demand. The benefits of Amazon Web Services are to give you a variety of choices when it comes to operating systems, web application platforms, programming languages, and so on. In a virtual ecosystem, the platform makes it simple to load any service or software you desire. This makes it easy to migrate from existing platforms and to set up new ones.

Reliable Encryption & Security

AWS provides the security and capabilities so that you don’t have to worry about your information, IT infrastructure, or anything else. When you use AWS’s services it makes sure everything is 100% secured! The security line of this leading cloud service provider has always been a famous feature and one of the key selling points of AWS. 

The company’s data centers are located in various geographic districts with an availability zone for backup, so even if one region fails there will be access to the most current version elsewhere. The AWS site also states their commitment to world-class protection: “AWS takes physical and virtual layers of security very seriously.” 

Security innovation

With new ideas like Amazon Macie, which helps identify sensitive information within organizations’ systems based on behavioral analysis; customers get work done faster without compromising workplace safety or privacy.

Datacenter infrastructure design

The company spends considerable time designing each individual piece of equipment from racks to power supplies.

Availability Zones (a minimum redundancy option)

AWS is trusted by many organizations, including NASDAQ and HealthCare.Gov because of AWS’ high-level security standards. So you can see, the benefits of Amazon Web Services have been recognized by many big international organizations.

Cost-Effective

With AWS, you don’t have to worry about spending a large budget on cloud storage. They provide an à la carte model that lets you use only what you need without worrying about long-term contracts!

AWS is the best choice for organizations that are looking to save money without risking investments in their own infrastructure. Furthermore, AWS provides economical pricing and has a wide range of services available, making it an ideal solution for start-ups or companies with large budgets who need more than just barebones hosting. 

AWS offers cheap prices as opposed to other on-premises solutions which can be very expensive when considering the cost of running applications from one’s own servers rather than relying solely on someone else’s network

Incredibly Diverse Array of Tools

AWS is a one-stop shop for every kind of cloud computing and IT needs. It provides ready-to-use platforms that can be taken advantage of by you in order to increase efficiency or effectiveness on the go! While AWS was initially meant only for cloud storage, it has now expanded into over 70 more services including databases, software development kits (SDKs), mobile SDKs, analytics toolsets (APIs), networking equipment, etc. The bottom line here is that this company wants your business so badly they have provided everything from A – Z at an affordable cost with no strings attached whatsoever.

Scalable and Elastic

Amazon provides infrastructure that scales in response to demand. As a result, if the user scales down the instances in use, the cost of consumption might be cheap. It’s already listed under the ‘pay per usage’ option. Large enterprises have found that scalability is the best answer because they don’t require any additional resources if they run out of storage.

AWS ensures that the application is always available and makes it simple to create new servers. If you need more servers, AWS makes it easy to do so in a matter of minutes. When you utilize fewer resources and don’t need the remainder, AWS automatically shrinks the resources to match your needs. AWS also informs you of the number of resources you are currently utilizing.

Quality Control

Few things are as damaging to a company’s growth as poor quality and inconsistent reporting. All papers are saved in one place and in a single format in an AWS cloud-based system. You can preserve data consistency, avoid human error, and have a clear record of any edits or updates if everyone has access to the same information. Managing information in silos, on the other hand, can result in employees saving different versions of documents by accident, resulting in confusion and diluted data.

High productivity

Using AWS to support your cloud computing eliminates the obligations and risks associated with containing internal IT infrastructures. It also reduces the need for IT support personnel, saving your company time and money in the long run.

>> Read more: An overview of Amazon Web Services: IaaS, SaaS, PaaS

Why should businesses use AWS?

Gain competitive advantage 

It is easy to understand that customers in the new world expect more from suppliers, from the innovation of product types to the quality of those products and the time delivered. It is now urgent for businesses to grab a certain amount of customers over competitors. Applying AWS allows firms to gain a competitive advantage in managing all activities in the organization, keep track of customers’ behaviors and purchasing routine while reducing managing costs by making firms becoming more agile.

Amazon Web Services is the global leader in cloud computing, with its network spanning 190+ countries and over a million active clients. AWS has been providing services to companies of all sizes as well as even governments-and it doesn’t seem like they’re slowing down anytime soon! As a result, deploying your apps on AWS can help you move faster, work more safely, save money, and scale your organization.

Comprehensive 

The cloud is the future of everything. One company that has made it their goal to bring every aspect of technology into the 21st century with this trend is Amazon Web Services, which offer a partner network and training on all things related to them in order for people like you or me not only to enjoy what they have but understand how we can use these qualities as well! 

All activities from AWS can include comprehensively reinventing customer relationships, using analytics extensively to derive insights from big data, sharing data seamlessly, and making data-driven and evidence-based decisions. Most importantly, firms can grow revenue and gross profit faster than other organizations if they can apply the benefits of Amazon Web Services properly.

Innovation 

Mobility

Cloud computing enables mobile access to company data via smartphones and gadgets, which is a terrific method to ensure that no one is ever left out of the loop. This function allows employees with busy schedules or who live a considerable distance from the corporate office to stay in touch with clients and coworkers at any time. For improved work-life balance, you can use the cloud to provide easily accessible information to sales personnel who travel, freelance employees, or remote employees.

New collaboration solution

Collaboration is made simple using cloud computing. On a cloud-based platform, team members may easily and securely see and share information. Some cloud-based platforms even offer collaborative social areas to link employees across your company, boosting interest and engagement. Without a cloud computing solution, collaboration may be feasible, but it will never be as easy or as effective.

Insights

As we progress deeper into the digital age, it becomes increasingly evident that the ancient cliché “knowledge is power” has been replaced by the more current and accurate “data is money.” There are nuggets of useful, actionable information hidden within the millions of bits of data that surround your customer transactions and business process, just waiting to be discovered and acted upon. For a bird’s-eye perspective of your data, several cloud-based storage options provide integrated cloud analytics.

Disaster Recovery

Control is one of the characteristics that adds to a company’s success. Unfortunately, no matter how in control your company is, when it comes to its internal procedures, there will always be things beyond your control. And in today’s market, even a small bit of useless downtime can have a huge impact. Damages to your productivity, income, and brand reputation can all come from some small minutes of system downtime.

For businesses that have suffered from this issue, they claim that this might be one of the top three best benefits of Amazon Web Services. While there is no way to prevent or even anticipate calamities that could hurt your company, there is something you can do to help speed up the recovery process. AWS enables rapid data recovery in a variety of disaster scenarios, including natural disasters and power outages.

Conclusion

Cloud computing is a concept that has been increasingly popular in recent years. With the exponential increase in data usage that has accompanied society’s transition into the digital twenty-first century, individuals and organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to keep all of their critical information, programs, and systems up and running on in-house computer servers. One of the services offered in recent years was Amazon Web Services. The software provides not only security but solutions for the new world in optimizing performance and great services for customers.

Get support from Magenest to get the best benefits of Amazon Web Services to gain a competitive advantage over competitors today!

The post Top 7+ benefits of Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Updated 2024 appeared first on Magenest - One-Stop Digital Transformation Solution.

What is Amazon EC2?

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a key infrastructure cloud service that provides cloud-based scalable compute power. Clients can rent powerful virtual computers and run their own apps on them. Amazon EC2 is a key component of Amazon.com’s cloud computing architecture, which also includes Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Block Store (EBS) for data storage, Amazon Elastic MapReduce for data processing, and Amazon CloudFront for content distribution.

An Amazon EC2 is a simulated computer system. An Amazon Virtual Machine runs on virtualized hardware, in a “sandboxed” environment, on a computer or server. The term virtualized hardware refers to Amazon virtual machines without dedicated hardware. Instead, these Amazon virtual machines use an allotted portion of another system. Sandboxed environments wouldn’t have direct access to their host system’s operating system (OS), files, or hardware.

Amazon EC2 offers a simple web service interface for scalable application deployment. Developers can have complete root access to their computing resources and use Amazon’s dependable computing environment. With EC2, it takes less time to procure and boot fresh server instances. As a result, capacity may be procured rapidly, configured, and scaled in response to changes in computing requirements.

Amazon EC2 instance types

Instance types are grouped into families based on target application profiles. These groups include the following:

• General purpose: A general purpose instance is a VM that is designed to handle a variety of workloads. There are basically two types of instances under this category – t2 and m5.
• Compute optimized: These instances are designed and optimized for running computational and data-intensive applications that require fast network performance, extensive availability, and high input/output (I/O) operations per second (IOPS).
• Graphics processing unit (GPU): These instances provide a way to run graphics-intensive applications faster than with the standard EC2 instances.
• Memory optimized: These instances are ideal for applications that require more memory and less CPU power, including open source databases, real-time big data analytics and in-memory caches.
• Storage optimized. Storage optimized instances are ideal for applications that require high I/O performance and They’re also well suited for memory-intensive applications such as data processing, data warehousing, analytics workloads, and log processing.
• Micro: The micro instance type can serve as a small database server, as a platform for software testing, or as a web server that does not require high transaction rates.

Amazon EC2 Features

It’s easy to get started with EC2. Since EC2 is managed by users of APIs it can request any number of server instances to raise or decrease storage easily at the same time. EC2 allows full control of instances which makes operating the instance as simple as when the machine is in-house. 

• Security: Users can control which instances remain private and which have internet exposure. EC2 leverages Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) for security, and businesses can connect their secure IT infrastructure to resources in VPC.
• Wide choice for processing: A combination between Intel Xeon, AMD EPYC, and AWS Graviton CPUs from the new generation helps one to find the right efficiency and price match for their workload. EC2 instances powered by NVIDIA GPUs and AWS Inferentia are also available for workloads involving fast computing tasks such as deep learning, gaming, and complex graphics.
• Automatic scaling: This is the advantage this makes the bulk of businesses opt for AWS EC2. Auto-scaling is simply supplying demand-based services. We either scale up or scale down, leading to production rises or decreases. The EC2 Container Service (ECS) uses the EC2 instances to set up and distribute a cluster of containers rapidly and efficiently. It removes the challenges inherent with running an internal cluster management system and makes it easier to set up containers as the basis for an application.
• Value for price – you pay as you go: Amazon EC2 requires payments for all the services that are currently being used. This provides various payment options such as Instances on request, Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, etc. that we can select according to our specifications. You’ll be paying by the hour, so you just pay for what you’ve used.
•  Elasticity: Amazon EC2 provides developers and network managers with the ability to create fault systems and separate themselves from common circumstances of failure. The availability of various types of instances, operating systems, and software bundles, along with the fact that EC2 is compatible with most AWS providers S3, Relational Database Service (RDS), Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) make it a stable solution for computation, query processing, and cloud storage.
• Reliability: AWS is distributed across 20 regions across the world with 61 connectivity zones (AZs) that help the company grow. It will also increase the application’s load speed around the world. One can always store multiple copies of their application in multiple AZs, so that the application will not fail completely if one data center fails or loses data. Amazon EC2 provides an incredibly stable system where instance substitution is easily feasible. Service Level Agreement pledge for each Amazon EC2 region is 99.9 percent availability.

Benefits of Amazon EC2

Elastic Load Balancing: Incoming application traffic will be automatically distributed among many instances via Amazon EC2. With this capability, EC2 can detect sick instances and automatically redirect traffic to healthy instances until the unhealthy instances are recovered. Load balancing capacity responds automatically to incoming application traffic. To improve the consistency of application performance Elastic Load Balancing can be enabled across multiple Availability Zones rather than just one.

Auto Scaling: Amazon EC2 capacity will be automatically scaled up or down based on the criteria specified by the customer. Schedule-based (e.g., time of day) and rule-based(e.g., CPU utilization criteria) techniques are both efficient and simple to utilize. Auto Scaling intelligently coordinates the number of Amazon EC2 instances in operation in times of traffic demand spikes or lulls to give the best performance at the lowest cost.

Persistent storage: Simple Storage Service was assured by EC2 (S3). EC2 instances can access the data in this storage system. In reality, by utilizing Amazon S3, clients will gain access to the same highly scalable, rapid, and dependable data storage infrastructure that Amazon employs to power its global network of websites. And what better endorsement could there be?

High performance: Users of Amazon EC2 can acquire a comprehensive and feature-rich, fail-safe, high-performance environment for their business needs. It is the most powerful cloud-based infrastructure choice on the market because of features such as automated scalability, flexibility, elastic IP addresses, and access to a nearly limitless range of AWS services.

Completely managed: You have total command over your instances. You have root access to all of them and can interact with them just like any other system. You can stop your instance while keeping the data on your boot partition, and then restart it using web service APIs. Using web service APIs, instances can be rebooted remotely. You can also view the console output of your instances.

Versatile cloud hosting services: You can select from a variety of instance kinds, operating systems, and software packages. Amazon EC2 allows you to choose the RAM, CPU, instance storage, and boot partition size that is best for your operating system and application. For example, your operating system options include a variety of Linux variants as well as Microsoft Windows Server.

Intended for use in conjunction with other Amazon web services: Amazon EC2 collaborates with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) to provide a comprehensive solution for computation, query processing, and storage across a broad range of applications.

Easy to begin: Get started with Amazon EC2 quickly by accessing the Amazon Web Services Management Console and selecting pre-configured software from Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). Using the EC2 console, you can rapidly install this app on EC2.

>> Read more: Top 7+ benefits of Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Challenges

However, several challenges need considering: 

• Resource utilization: To avoid pricey huge, long-running instances, developers must limit the number of instances they have. 
• Security: Developers must ensure that public-facing instances run securely. 
• Deploying at scale: Operating a large number of instances might result in cluttered, difficult-to-manage settings. 
• AMI lifecycle management: Developers frequently start with default Amazon Machine Images. Custom configurations will almost certainly be required as computing needs evolve. 
• Ongoing maintenance Amazon EC2 instances are virtual machines that run in Amazon’s cloud on an ongoing basis. However, they are ultimately powered by real hardware that can fail.

Amazon EC2 pricing

AWS cost and capacity optimization services and tools allow you to spend more time building and less time managing compute costs. AWS has the exact services and tools you need to optimize your EC2 usage within your existing budget. You can try Amazon EC2 for free. There are five ways of payment for Amazon EC2 instances

Free Tier

The AWS Free Tier includes 750 hours of Linux and Windows instances t2.micro (regional t3.micro instances when t2.micro instances are unavailable) per month for one year. To maintain the Free Tier, use EC2 small instances only.

On-demand

With On-Demand instances, you only pay for computing capacity by the hour or by the second, depending on which instance you run. No long-term commitment or upfront payment is required. You can increase or decrease your compute capacity according to your application’s needs, and only pay the specified hourly rate for the instance you use.

On-Demand Edition is recommended for:

Users who want to use Amazon EC2 with low cost and flexibility with no upfront payments or long-term commitments.

Applications with short-term workloads, variable or unpredictable usage, and no interruptions.

Application developed or tested on Amazon EC2 for the first time.

Spot version

Amazon EC2 spot instances allow you to claim redundant Amazon EC2 compute capacity for up to 90% less than On-Demand pricing.

Spot instances are recommended for:

• The app has a flexible start and end time.
• The application is only possible at the extremely low cost of computing.
• Users with urgent computing needs for large amounts of additional capacity.

Saving plan

Savings Plans is a flexible pricing model that offers lower rates than On-Demand instances in return for which customers need to commit to a certain amount of usage (in USD/hour) for a period of 1 or 3 years. AWS offers 3 types of Savings Plans.

• Compute Savings Plans: Compute Savings Plans apply to Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and AWS Fargate usage.
• EC2 Instance Savings Plans: EC2 Instance Savings Plans apply to EC2 usage.
• Amazon SageMaker Savings Plans: Amazon SageMaker Savings Plans apply to Amazon SageMaker usage.

You can easily sign up for 1 or 3 year Savings Plans in AWS Cost Explorer, then manage your plans using recommendations, performance reports, and cost alerts.

Dedicated server

A dedicated server is a physical EC2 server that is dedicated to your use. A dedicated server can help you reduce costs by allowing you to use existing server-bound software licenses, including Windows Server, SQL Server, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (subject to license term), and can help you meet compliance requirements.

This pricing plan can be purchased as a Reserve at up to 70% off the On-Demand price.

Conclusion

In this article, we have seen some of the important concepts related to Amazon Virtual Machine and also the services that help us understand some types of EC2 instances. You can deploy your applications on EC2 and these applications can be served all over the world. Amazon EC2 is spanned across multiple regions across the globe which makes it one of the most reliable and high available services from Amazon.

The post Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2): Definition, Benefits, and Pricing appeared first on Magenest - One-Stop Digital Transformation Solution.

We decided to try our best to do our research and get the job done for you. This article will help you to figure out AWS vs Azure which is better. This will help you to make an appropriate decision when choosing the cloud platform for your enterprise. Let’s check it out and it will be surely useful for you.

AWS vs Azure General Feature Comparison

Both AWS and Azure offer the basic features in common such as computation flexibility, storage, networking, and pricing. Both of them apply common elements of the public cloud such as auto-increase and decrease of resources, self-service, pay for what you use, security, commitment to compliance, and management features. 

According to Synergy Research Group Report, AWS still leads the global market share in public cloud services at 33%, followed by Azure at 13% and Google Cloud at 6%. Now, look at the table below and you will find out the differences between them based on some general features:

Now, we will figure out detailed information about the difference between these two giant cloud platforms.

AWS vs Azure compute

Calculating and processing data are the fundamental roles of the computer. The appropriate cloud service provider can help scale up to 1000 processing nodes in just a few minutes based on our requirements. For organizations that need faster data analysis or rendering, there are two options available – buy more hardware or move to the cloud. This is the goal of public cloud services.

The primary solution of AWS is Amazon EC2 which offers on-demand scalable, computing, and can be customized with various options. AWS offers the most services with over 100 services, including computing, storage, database, analytics, networking, mobility, development tools, management tools, IoT, security. enterprise data and applications.

Whereas, for computing function, Azure uses virtual machines and to scale to software management and for a large extent uses virtual machine scale sets. Azure uses Container Registry for Docker container registry; and in Docker container, Azure has Container Service (AKS) as the primary solution. 

AWS vs Azure storage

Storage is the next important function that cloud providers bring to your enterprise. AWS has S3 (Simple storage service), which was used for much longer than Azure and able to provide a lot of tutorials and documentation. However, Azure’s storage capacity through D drive is also very reliable. 

With AWS, this cloud platform has temporary storage. It provides high availability and automated backups across regions. AWS starts running when an operation is started and stops when the operation is terminated. AWS also has block storage capacity as a hard disk, then it can be attached to any EC2 instance or separated. Data archiving services with Glacier, whereas Object storage is offered with S3. Relational and NoSQL databases and Big Data are fully supported in AWS, too.

About Azure, this cloud platform offers block storage through Page Blobs for VMs and temporary storage through D drive. Supports relational databases; NoSQL and Big Data through Azure Table and HDInsight are included in this cloud. Azure block storage options are similar to S3 in AWS. There are two types of storage provided by Azure: Hot and Cool. Cool storage is cheaper than hot storage, but users will have to pay some extra fees. 

AWS vs Azure database

Today’s data is born in various types of formats, so databases are one of the key factors to build up a good cloud platform. Then, AWS and Azure both have services that support both structured and unstructured data.

If what you’re looking for is stability in your cloud platform, then AWS is ideal for you, in which Amazon RDS is included, it supports a variety of different database engines like Amazon Aurora, MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL, and Oracle. Whereas Azure uses MySQL, SQL database, and PostgreSQL for the relational database, it comes to Cosmos DB for NoSQL solutions and Redis Cache for caching purposes. Azure’s interfaces and tools make it easy to perform various operations with a database, while AWS has more instance types that you can use.

In terms of interface, Azure’s interfaces and tools make it easy to perform various operations with a database, while AWS has more instance types that you can use. In terms of the advanced capabilities of these tools, they are both fairly supportive of statistical analysis and Big Data. AWS has EMR while Azure has HD Insights for the same purpose. 

Azure also offers Cortana Intelligence Suite that comes with Hadoop, Spark, Storm, and HBase. In terms of the advantageous environment, AWS is a more conducive environment for Big Data. This requires further evidence in the next section on Networking services.

AWS vs Azure networking

Networking is one of the key elements when mentioning AWS vs Azure performance comparison. Cloud providers offer different partners and networks; therefore, comparing them will show AWS vs Azure product comparison. 

AWS provides a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) for networking and has an API gateway for cross-premises connectivity. Users can create routing tables, private IP address ranges, subnets, and network gateways in VPC. Besides, AWS uses Elastic load balancing for load balance during networking. 

Similarly, Azure provides a Virtual Network (VNET) for networking or content delivery, and a VPN gateway is used for cross-premises connectivity. Both AWS and Azure provide a firewall and solution for scaling the on-premises data center into the cloud. It manages with a load balancer and application gateway for load balancing during content delivery.

AWS vs Azure pricing

Pricing is a major attracting factor for organizations planning to move to the cloud. With the growing competition among cloud service providers, pricing has been on a downward trend recently. Both cloud platforms offer a trial of their service for a set period before being charged. Additionally, both offer service credits to grab the attention of startups using their cloud platforms.

Both AWS and Azure offer a “pay for what you use” but  Azure charges you on a per-minute basis whereas AWS charges you hourly. Thus, AWS can help you save money with increasing usage – the more you use, the less you pay. However, Azure provides a more exact pricing mode, it gives you more flexibility.  Therefore, When you need it over a short period, Azure will be a better choice, but in later product development stages, AWS will offer a greater cost reduction.

AWS vs Azure container and orchestration support

AWS is better at supporting Big Data and analytics offerings. It has different services like loT support services, mobile application development, or even creates a computing environment depending on needs. They also offer support for Docker.

Whereas, Microsoft is equal and even goes one step more, which is bringing out Hadoop to support Azure HDInsight. Azure integrates with Windows Server 2016 to facilitate the use of Docker containers, including Windows containers and Hyper-V containers.

AWS vs Azure security

The Final bit in this ‘AWS vs Azure’ article is security. AWS works with numerous government agencies around the world. They also provide good security features and are targeted to specific audiences, which are extremely important when handling sensitive data.

And Azure has 50 above-mentioned partners, including ITAR, DISA, HIPAA, CJIS, and FIPS. Concerning information security and safety, it’s hard to show the winner of the security competition between Azure and AWS.

Final Words

After a while of AWS vs Azure comparison, Magenest has analyzed and detailed the cloud services of AWS and Azure in this article. Both Cloud platforms as seen above show their capabilities and it is difficult to pick a winner in this battle. Trying to compare Azure and AWS is difficult as they both continue to roll out new pricing methods, new products, new solutions, and new integrations. Azure has a strong point in Hybrid Cloud and integrating Microsoft tools, while AWS is more flexible and feature-rich. Therefore, it still depends on your product and company requirements. The decision to choose between the two platforms depends on the needs of the organizations, comparing whether AWS or Azure will meet those requirements.

Azure vs AWS certification can be difficult to achieve at first if you try to learn the platform without having instruction. However, it can be very easy if you’re sufficiently guided. If you started studying hard for a certification, it would chip away at your time with friends and family. Nevertheless, we will show you a path that will take you to your goals faster.

Finally, this article is an overview of the differences between AWS vs Azure services. Magenest hopes you will have a better knowledge of the services which are offered by AWS vs Azure providers and figure out which one is suitable for your business. If you are searching for infrastructure as a service or a wide range of tools and services, you can choose AWS. If windows integration or a good platform as a service (PaaS) cloud provider are what you are looking for, then you can choose Azure.

Magenest is proud to be an official partner by AWS in Vietnam. If your business needs to use cloud computing services to keep up with the trend of 4.0 technology, let Magenest be the guide for you to use the outstanding features of AWS. Magenest also provides customized and integrated services to meet the most exact needs of your business with the most optimal cost and optimal efficiency!

The post AWS vs Azure: Which Is The Best For Your Enterprise? appeared first on Magenest - One-Stop Digital Transformation Solution.

The following article will give you an overview of Amazon Web Services (AWS) including AWS IaaS PaaS SaaS, as well as the applicability of these services in practice.

Introduction about AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the most widely used public cloud computing platform across the globe and one of the pioneers of on-demand computing. Launched in 2006, AWS has soon grown to be a multi-billion dollar business, providing customers worldwide with access to more than 100 services from database management, serverless computing, and data warehousing to virtual ground stations for satellite communications.

There are numerous famous companies that have had their infrastructure successfully built on AWS including Splunk, Infor, Okta, Dynatrace, Crowdtangle, Zapproved, Pegasystems, Playauto, SendBird, Simscale, Airbnb, Nextdoor, Flatiron Health, Bambora.

AWS is PaaS or IaaS or SaaS. Each service of Amazon has its own merits and flaws and is suitable for the specific needs of a company. Let’s go into more detail about each one, beginning with IaaS AWS services.

AWS IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

What is AWS IaaS? IaaS or Infrastructure as a service is one of Amazon Web Services that focuses on providing infrastructure services based on cloud computing technology. It’s not difficult to name an organization that provides IaaS but among the top providers worldwide, AWS stands out as the front-runner for IaaS cloud services. It has clients in 190 countries and 66 available Zones within 21 geographic regions. IaaS Amazon Service is used to replace physical resources, such as servers, with virtual resources hosted and managed by Amazon. System users can run any operating system or application on these leased servers, without incurring any extra fees for maintenance and operation. 

AWS IaaS helps businesses to digitize more quickly while allowing them to integrate all their data on a single platform. Additionally, it enables businesses to scale up and down at any given time to suit their needs. All these features make AWS IaaS a widely used platform by companies nowadays. Magento can be considered a typical example of IaaS in AWS.

AWS IaaS Benefits

• Availability of separate development environment 
• Hardware and operating system specifications for the service can be selected and used directly from the network
• Allow expanding the resources of the server in terms of quantity and functionality
• No errors or extra costs arise while upgrading the system

AWS IaaS Characteristics

Characteristics that define IaaS include:

• Resources are available as a service
• Cost depends on the consumption
• Highly scalable
• Allow multiple users to access a single piece of hardware
• The organization has complete control of the infrastructure
• Dynamic and flexible

When to Use Amazon AWS IaaS

AWS IaaS is suitable for:

• Startups and small companies that want to avoid spending time and money in producing hardware and software.
• Larger companies prefer complete control over their applications and infrastructure, but want to purchase only what is needed for the app development.
• Companies with rapid growth potential like to keep altering hardware and software as per their demands for scaling up.

AWS IaaS Services Drawbacks 

• Security threats that may arise from the host or other virtual machines
• Customer’s inability to access their data when vendor outages happen
• Required team training to learn how to manage new infrastructure

PaaS (Platform as a Service)

One of Amazon’s offerings includes PaaS. So what is AWS PaaS? This is a service that provides the foundation for developers to design apps. In its simplest sense, a third-party vendor will provide hardware and software tools to users over the Internet, and users will only need to handle the application design and development process. All hardware and software will be hosted by the PaaS service provider on its own infrastructure.

Among 3 Amazon service solutions that apply cloud computing technology namely Iaas Paas Saas AWS, PaaS plays an important role in simplifying the application development process on the web. With cloud technology, developers can access the platform data from anywhere. This can facilitate project development on a global scale. However, it also means that the developers will have less control over the application design environment.

PaaS Benefit

• Availability of application development environment which saves users a lot of time and money.
• Users don’t need to worry about platform maintenance and backup services which are entirely managed by cloud technology.
• The infrastructure is stored directly in the cloud, and users can always access it immediately.
• Save time developing applications thanks to existing cross-platform environments.
• Flexible development according to users’ need to use advanced software.

PaaS Characteristics

Consider the below characteristics will help you determine when PaaS is being utilized:

• Resources can easily be scaled up or down as your business changes.
• Provides a variety of services to facilitate the development, testing, and deployment of apps.
• Multiple users can access via the same development application.
• Able to integrate with web services and databases.

When to Use PaaS

If you are looking for a cost-effective and time-saving solution, PaaS can be an ideal choice. PaaS saves the developer more time to focus on the creative side of app development such as creating, testing, and deploying the app while not having to worry about managing software updates or security patches. 

AWS PaaS Drawbacks 

• Dependent on the provider’s functional capabilities, speed, and reliability.
• Compatibility problems may arise when existing infrastructure is incorporated into a new environment.
• Security risks due to its availability in the public environment.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

Apart from AWS IaaS Paas, Amazon also includes SaaS in its services. This Software as a service (also called Web-based software, on-demand software, or hosted software) is a software distribution model whose applications are hosted and made discoverable to the customers over the Internet.

When embracing this solution, you will have access to the application, along with its security, availability, and performance managed by the provider. SaaS is also one of Amazon’s web services favored by a large number of users worldwide because of the multiple benefits brought by it.

AWS SaaS Benefits

• Able to use directly over the network without having to install any software.
• All data can be stored on the Internet.
• Data can be accessed via any device, as long as an Internet connection is available.
• Multiple users can access the same data warehouse.
• Quick setup and operation of advanced applications.

SaaS Characteristics

Below are characteristics that define Saas as a cloud service:

• Managed from a central location.
• Hosted on a remote server.
• Accessible over the internet.
• Users have the hardware or software updated by the provider.

When to Use Saas

SaaS should be used by: 

• Startups or small companies that wish to start running their eCommerce site quickly and have little time for server issues or software.
• Companies that prefer quick, easy, and affordable collaboration.
• Companies with infrequently used applications such as tax software.
• Companies that want to provide both web and mobile access for customers.

AWS SaaS Drawbacks

• Difficult to integrate with existing apps and services.
• Security risks due to its availability in the public environment.
• Limited customization capabilities.
• Loss of operational control which affects how PaaS solutions are managed, provisioned, and operated.

Wrapping up: Is AWS PaaS, IaaS, or SaaS the Best Option to Choose?

Now that you’ve grasped the basic knowledge of Amazon Web Services, you may wonder: which Amazon Web Service is the right fit for your company: AWS Iaas or PaaS or SaaS?

In general, each cloud model provides particular features and functions. To make the right choice, the company or business needs to understand the differences between these services.

Regarding the level of complexity, some cloud computing server models are more complicated than others. Specifically, the level of system administration knowledge gradually decreases as follows: Amazon IaaS > PaaS > SaaS.

As for the offering of features, the three Amazon Web Services IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS are distinguished from each other in which: 

• IaaS offers the highest flexibility for hosting custom-built apps, as well as a general data center for storing data.
• PaaS allows you to invest more time in developing the application while having the infrastructure managed by the provider.
• SaaS provides solutions that are ready to use and out-of-the-box to suit a specific business requirement.

Hopefully, the above article has given you a thorough knowledge of each Amazon Web Service and how they are different. Whether it is AWS IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS that you choose to deploy for your business, making the early migration to the cloud can bring you a huge advantage over the competitors that are busy doing things the old way. If you want to gain more insights about these technologies and receive the latest news about the eCommerce market, please feel free to subscribe to our newsletter.

The post An Overview of Amazon Web Services: IaaS, SaaS, PaaS appeared first on Magenest - One-Stop Digital Transformation Solution.

What is Amazon EMR?

Amazon EMR stands for Amazon Elastic MapReduce – an Amazon Web Service tool used for processing and analyzing big data. ERM solutions support the demand for computing horsepower and the necessary infrastructure to handle complex problems of sorting out trends and insights from a large amount of data. Amazon EMR’s related tools and platforms are stored in Amazon’s data center. The future of the deployment of big data lies in the cloud, which explains why EMR is becoming a vital platform for businesses who are looking for an affordable configuration solution as an alternative to in-house computing resources.

Amazon EMR is a platform that allows the developers to write codes for programs for processing and analyzing a massive amount of unstructured data across computing clusters. Based on a Java programming framework, Amazon EMR supports the process of handling large data sets in a distributed cloud computing environment. With the deployment of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) servers, big data is processed across these virtual servers by Amazon EMR. The platform’s impressive resizing ability allows it to decrease or ramp up resources depending on the developers’ demand at any given time.

>> Read more: 7 Advantages of AWS (Amazon Web Service ) you should know

How does amazon EMR work?

Amazon EMR consists of many different layers that are responsible for a certain task in the computing cluster. These layers include:

• Storage: This layer is a group of file systems that come along with your cluster when being used. Some of the file system options include HDFS, EMRFS,…
• Cluster Resource Management: This layer is used for the management of cluster resources and assignment of processing data-related jobs.
• Data Processing Frameworks: this framework layer is used for processing and analyzing data.
• Applications and Programs: Amazon EMR supports a vast number of applications such as Hive, Pig, especially the Spark Streaming library for the provision of different capabilities as demanded.

First off, data input will be processed in Amazon EMR, and these input data then will be stored as files in a certain chosen underlying file system. These underlying file systems include AWS systems such as Amazon S3 or HDFS. In the processing sequence, data will be processed from this stage to the next. The final step involves the writing of the output data in a specified location which can be an Amazon S3 bucket. 

How much does Amazon EMR cost?

With the vast number of applications that are supported on the platform, Amazon EMR automates launching and managing EC2 instances that are pre-loaded for data analysis. When being deployed, data can be accessed from computing nodes (HDFS) or in the external storage system of data, such as S3.

Therefore, there are two main elements which will determine Amazon EMR pricing:

• EC2Compute: With the Amazon EMR’s launch of EC2 instances, users only have to pay for the dimension per second of using computing services, based on the type of instances. 
• EMRfee: EMR will cost you a small amount of management fee which will be counted based on EC2 instance types and computing time used in the cluster. 

The total price for using this AWS ranges from at least 1400$ per year for standard services and up to 2500$ for on-demand services per year.

>> Read more: Amazon Athena: Definition, Benefit, Pricing, How it works

Benefits of EMR

Amazon EMR has been proven effective in processing big data without needing too many server resources. Here are some of its outstanding benefits:

A cost-saving infrastructure

As a cloud-based computing service, Amazon EMR offers a data solution without the cost of maintaining an in-house computing infrastructure server. Users can still make use of the same tools and file systems but now in the cloud instead.

System administration time-saving

The key to helping users save time concerning system admin tasks is that Amazon EMR will spin and scale your EC2 instances when needed and decouple them when the tasks are done. This capability is put under comparison with in-house computing as users’ data will be required to keep local.

Amazon EMR’s complimentary applications

One of the outstanding benefits of Amazon EMR is related to its applications that go along with the service. To run your EMR, you would need massive data storage that can be supported by using these Amazon services. Amazon EMR example of complementary applications include:

• Amazon SageMaker: The app allows developers to build and use algorithms for creating a model endpoint to serve the purpose of production use.
• Amazon CloudWatch: The app will help you keep close track of resource allocation, efficiency, and operation.
• Amazon Quicksight: all of your datasets will be virtualized with the help of this app in only one intuitive dashboard. 

With these aforementioned benefits, what could be Amazon EMR use cases? For businesses that are having these troubles:

• Physical infrastructure maintaining cost: Running an in-house infrastructure cluster would be a waste of resources for analyzing big data in some cases. With the aid of Amazon EMR, you and your business won’t have to worry about such things for it to be more resource-efficient.
• Time-wasting system admin tasks: Many businesses choose Hadoop for data analyzing which costs a lot of time for management. With Hadoop now integrated into EMR, businesses won’t be involved in the in-house complex management of Hadoop.
• Too much time spent on data processing: With the traditional in-house team, it would take a lot of time for data to process from one team to another which means the queue seems to be forever. With a scalable EMR solution, all these hassle work will be completed in a fraction of the time.
• A need for physical server infrastructure outsourcing: Removing physical software at the workplace when having Amazon EMR in the cloud means you have saved lots of resources, and that helps your business remove unnecessary IT infrastructure.

That’s when Amazon EMR comes in the place!

The post What is Amazon EMR? How much does it cost and how does it work? appeared first on Magenest - One-Stop Digital Transformation Solution.

What is Amazon Athena?

Amazon Athena is known as an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data directly in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) using standard SQL. With a few actions in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Management Console, you can point Athena at your data which was stored in Amazon S3, and begin using standard SQL to run ad-hoc queries and get results in seconds.

Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to set up or manage. Athena scales automatically running queries in parallel, therefore results are fast, even with large datasets or complex queries.

How does Amazon Athena work?

Amazon Athena works directly with S3 data. Athena uses a distributed SQL engine, Presto in order to run queries,  Apache Hive to create and alter tables and partitions. 

One way to think about Athena? It’s somehow similar to a Google search. You might know the data is out there, but sometimes it’s hard to find the data sets that you actually need. A query is similar to a Google search in that you can create the parameters for the SQL query that you need to perform. The difference here is that you’re now using cloud computing services instead of a search engine.

Amazon Athena does not require setup or configuration, which is typically the case with a local data store and involves an ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) preparing data in a database for a query by isolating the dataset. Instead, with Athena, your query can run without using ETL. Thus, it simplifies the process – you run the query from an easy-to-use web console. You only need to point to your data in S3, configure the schema, and start the query.

How much does Amazon Athena cost?

Amazon Athena pricing is $5 to scan Terabyte data from S3, surrounded by the closest megabyte having a minimum of 10 MB per query.

To reduce the cost, Amazon advises users to use compressed data files, have data in columnar formats, and routinely delete old result sets.

Benefits of Amazon Athena

Ease of use 

Athena uses Presto, an SQL query engine that was designed to run interactive analytic queries against data sources of all sizes. It also supports a wide range of data formats including Avro, Parquet, CSV, JSON, and ORC. This allows Athena to run quick ad-hoc analysis as well as more complex requests including nested queries, large joins, windows functions, and arrays. 

Serverless 

As mentioned above, Athena is serverless which means the user can quickly query data without having to configure or manage any infrastructure. Additionally, the customer doesn’t have to worry about failures, software updates, or scaling the servers or data warehouses as the datasets and number of users grow. 

The interactive query service allows data analysts to tap into their data in Amazon S3 without creating processes to extract, transform, and load the data. 

Pay per query 

With Athena, users only have to pay for the queries they run and the amount of data scanned per each query. So, users can significantly reduce their charges by partitioning, compressing, and converting their data into columnar formats. Besides, there are no additional storage charges since the queries are performed directly in S3. 

Fast performance 

This interactive query tool is designed for fast performance with S3. It can easily perform queries in parallel, allowing users to get results within seconds.

Integrations 

Amazon Athena is able to integrate with a variety of tools including AWS Glue, Amazon QuickSight, and Key Management Service (KMS). For instance, integrating Athena with Glue allows users to access the Glue Catalog helping them to create a unified metadata repository across different services. 

>> Read more: Top benefits of Amazon Web Services (AWS)

What are the key differences between Athena and Redshift Spectrum?

Launching in April 2017, Amazon Redshift Spectrum is known as a feature within Amazon Redshift. Spectrum allows you to query data stored on Amazon S3 using SQL, and to run the same queries on tabular data stored in your Redshift cluster and data stored in S3 which all use the Redshift SQL query editor. 

Both Spectrum and Athena are similar in terms that they enable users to query data stored on S3. But, they also have some differences in how they work under the hood so choosing one over the other will produce different results in many cases. Below are some of these distinctions.

Amazon Athena vs Redshift Cost

Athena and Spectrum are both charged based on the data scanned when running a query. The price is the same for both services –  $5 per compressed terabyte scanned.

Additional costs to take into account could be storage on S3, which is relatively less costly than a database. 

While in Athena these costs would be all-inclusive, with Spectrum you also need to consider Redshift compute costs.

Performance

While both Spectrum and Athena are serverless, they still have some differences.  Athena relies on pooled resources provided by Amazon Web Services to return query results, whereas Spectrum resources are allocated according to your Redshift cluster size. 

Besides, using Redshift Spectrum gives you more control over performance. In case you need a specific query to return extra-quickly, you can easily allocate additional computing resources. This is not the case with Athena, where your query will only receive the resources allocated automatically by Amazon Web Services, which might differ during peak usage times.

Athena and Spectrum use virtual tables when querying data stored on Amazon S3. This is done using the Glue Data Catalog for schema management. Athena is optimized to work directly with table metadata stored in the Glue Data Catalog, whereas external tables in Spectrum need to be configured per each Glue Data Catalog schema.

Final words

We can’t deny the fact that data has become an essential asset that a company owns, gaining insights and extracting more out of the data is more critical now than ever. With public cloud services, providing service-based analytics services, more and more people are now searching for Amazon Athena tutorial. With all the benefits that Athena brings, companies can get more insights without any expensive complications that arise with home-built analytics tools. 

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