AWS is an on-demand computing service that you only pay for what you actually use. Before AWS, the traditional on-premise computing model is analogous to owning and operating your own power generator in the early days of industry revolution. AWS is similar to the modern centralized power generation. Today you no longer have to run your own generator. Whenever you need electricity, plug into an outlet and use it for as long as you want and only pay for what you actually use. The same thing happened for computing with AWS.
AWS offers a wide range of services, covering a lot areas of IT, including computing, network, storage, database, analytics, media, security, machine learning, mobile, IoT, blockchain, AR/VR, compliance and audit, developer tools, call center, games, etc. The list of services grows fast. New features are constantly being added to the services.
The core services, which for me are EC2, S3, EBS, and VPC, work really well. They rarely have out...
Their pricing model consistently gets better while features get added. It's still very pricey, b...
The ecosystem. It has all the basic infrastructure just ready and waiting. Sure, it's not always ...
Serve millions seating behind your desk
It works and has a HUGE service library. You can do anything with AWS
The pricing contains many semi-hidden gotchas and require intense studying and attention in order...
Opaque billing, permissions and security (I am still befuddled by IAM, SSO, groups, etc half the ...
Their interface is terrible and they overcomplicate most of the services.
Cost is one factor. You need to be really careful.
The complexity and not too much effort in the documentation
Consistent with its pay-as-you-go model, AWS generally charges based on usage. Each service has its own pricing structure since what counts as usage differs from service to service.
Cost saving tips:
- Take advantage of the AWS free tier. For the services you want, know how much usage is free one-time or per month.
- Open multiple AWS accounts, one for production and one for each testing stage. This is recommended at one of the AWS reInvent talks.
- If your usage is high, combine all your AWS accounts into one billing account to qualify for volume discounts.
- To keep a close tap on your AWS cost, monitor the Billing Dashboard on the management console and set alarms on the cost. The cost is usually refreshed daily.
- If you don't mind the lock-in, services like EC2 and DynamoDB offer Reserved Instances or Reserved Capacity. Essentially you prepay to get a lower rate for usage. These can save 50% or more if your utilization level is high.
- Take advantage of AWS credit offered through startup programs. It is not uncommon to see $10K credit given to startups. The credit may have an expiration though.
We paid for ProductHunt Ship and got $5,000 AWS credit (available for 1 year). Our current usage of AWS per month is…
40% off entire bill, but using a lot of lock in services, bill clocks in ~$2m/mo. Initial quote was 20% off.
Despite using them for several years, we got $10k credits based on the possibility of moving out.
AWS turned storage, computing, databases, and more into an API call. Twilio did the same to phone calls and SMS messages. Stripe did that to money. Sendgrid and Mailgun and more did that to email. ...
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Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud and quite a few others also provide Cloud Computing services.
