AWS - Amazon Web Services ()
Deep Dive into the Cloud Giant Powering the Modern Internet
What is AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's most comprehensive and widely adopted cloud platform, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. Whether you're a startup, enterprise, or government agency, AWS provides scalable, secure, and reliable infrastructure on demand.
AWS core services
- EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) : Virtual servers for running applications
- S3 (Simple Storage Service) : Scalable object storage for data backups, archives, and analytics.
- VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) : Isolated cloud network to launch resources.
- RDS (Relational Database Service) : Managed SQL databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB.
EC2 Breakdown
EC2 lets you launch virtual machines called instances. You can select instance types based on compute power, memory, storage, and networking. With Elastic Load Balancing and Auto Scaling, you can handle fluctuating traffic efficiently.
- AMI : Amazon Machine Image to define OS/software stack
- Security Groups : Virtual firewall for instances
- Elastic IP : Static public IP address for your instance
- EBS : Block storage volumes for persistent storage
AWS S3
Amazon S3 stores data as objects within buckets. Each object has a key and metadata. S3 supports versioning, lifecycle policies, cross-region replication, and encryption (SSE-S3, SSE-KMS).
- Storage Classes : Standard, Intelligent-Tiering, Glacier, etc.
- Access Control : IAM policies, Bucket policies, ACLs
- Presigned URLs : Temporary access to private objects
Security Best Practices
- Enable MFA on root account and users
- Use IAM roles instead of access keys
- Enable CloudTrail for logging and auditing
- Apply least privilege principle
- Use Security Hub and GuardDuty for continuous monitoring
Cost Optimization Tips
- Use Savings Plans or Reserved Instances
- Monitor with Cost Explorer and Budgets
- Right-size instances and use auto-scaling
- Use S3 lifecycle rules for infrequent access data