Amazon Web Services is Amazon’s subsidiary that provides a broad classification of global cloud services, including databases, storage, compute management tools, IoT, mobile, developer, networking, and enterprise applications. Amazon Web Services were introduced in 2006 to provide services on-demand basis, within seconds, and using pay-as-you-go pricing (Bandaru, 2020). From development tools to data warehousing and content delivery to directories, currently, this docket offers over 200 AWS services (Bandaru, 2020). It has enabled startups, enterprises, and medium-sized businesses in the private and public sectors to quickly have reliable building blocks to adapt to the changing environment and customer demands. The main benefit of Amazon Web Services is that it allows customers and businesses to replace the upfront capital infrastructure with relatively cheap costs, which helps them scale up their IT services quickly. This study will analyze the services provided by Amazon Web Services, their effectiveness, and provide recommendations for improving the system.
Description of Amazon’s Web Services Networking, Communications, and Security Components
Amazon has a wide variety of networking services that it offers. These include Amazon VPC, which provides the users with isolated sections of the AWS cloud, enabling them to define networks and launch AWS resources.. Amazon Rote 53 is a scalable, cost-effective, reliable cloud network that routes end users to different applications at a cost-effective and reliable method. Amazon Cloud Front is a fast, secure network that delivers data, applications, API, and videos to global customers within a highly developer-friendly environment (Whitepaper, 2022). An elastic load balancing network helps distribute incoming traffic into different servers or applications. The elastic load balancing network provides four types of load balancers: Application load balancer, Network load balancer, Classic load balancer, and Gateway load balancer.
Another network is AWS private link, which eliminates data exposure to the public internet to simplify the security of data shared using the cloud. AWS App Mesh is used for monitoring and controlling micro servers in AWS by standardizing its communication and providing end-to-end high application visibility (Bandaru, 2020). AWS Global Accelerator helps in the development of accelerators that enhance application performance. AWS Direct Connect enables users to create a dedicated network from the AWS to their premises. This can be from the AWS to their offices, location, and data center at relatively lower prices (Bandaru, 2020). AWS Cloud Map is a resource discovery service that coordinates with the cloud. AWS Transit Gateway network allows users to use a single gateway to connect their on-premise networks to Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. Finally, the AWS VPN provides secure access to the user’s premises and cloud network in all parts of the World.
Security
AWS has prioritized the security of its cloud services, and it keeps evolving to ensure that it meets the organization’s unique needs. As organizations adopt flexibility and scalability using the cloud, AWS has prioritized cloud security and other foundational services (Bandaru, 2020). The users will likely benefit from the data center and network architecture that Amazon has built to meet the security demands of the most sensitive industries. AWS offers customers on-premise security whereby they do not have to manage physical storage and servers but instead use security-based security tools to protect and monitor information in the server (Bandaru, 2020). Thus, the security allows users to be innovative and scale their operations while ensuring they are in a secure environment at a relatively low cost. As a user, one can enjoy the most reliable AWS policies, operational and architectural processes built for the most security-sensitive customers. Another feature of its security is that it gives the user a shared responsibility whereby the user manages security in the cloud, which includes protecting personal content, applications, systems, and networks as AWS manages the security of the cloud (Bandaru, 2020). This indicates that AWS has a reliable, flexible, and up-to-date security system for its users.
The Impact of AWS on the Users or Organization
Being the World’s leading cloud computing provider, AWS has been able to change the lives of many organizations and users. Firstly, it has enabled big companies to go “all in,” whereby they completely rely on AWS for its operations to focus on their unique services. Netflix was among the first companies to adopt AWS in 2009 (Whitepaper, 2022). As time passed, the company continued pushing AWS to have all their internet services provided by them. The pressure by Netflix integrated with AWS’s willingness to satisfy its customers led them to have a full, enterprise set of services it has today. In 2015, Netflix closed its last data center and transferred all its IT operations to AWS (Whitepaper, 2022). Other companies that have moved all their IT-related operations to AWS are Hertz, Intuit, and Time Inc. (Whitepaper, 2022). AWS controls all their IT-related services, including information structure and customer databases. This shows that AWS has positively impacted the growth of organizations by providing full IT services.
AWS has significantly impacted other organizations by providing an increased speed of rolling out a website from an average of two weeks to two days. Changes to a marketing campaign or site can be made quickly, which has helped increase businesses’ flexibility (Whitepaper, 2022). Nowadays, with AWS, businesses can easily respond to their competitors’ threats and competitive strategies within two days. For instance, when Unilever North America realized its average time to market crucial consumer goods was delayed by its traditional IT structures, it adopted AWS. It helped the business change its time-to-market to two days easily. With more than 1700 digital marketing webs, AWS has improved Unilever products’ marketing significantly (Whitepaper, 2022). AWS has impacted organizations’ time-to-market, making them more flexible.
Competitive Analysis of AWS, Including How the System Helps Users or Organizations Address Its Business Processes
AWS has several competitive advantages over other cloud service providers, including computing capability, storage capabilities, Billing and Pricing, Support, and Uptime and Security. Regarding computing capabilities, AWS has provided its users with a unique service of moving all its computing services to the company, which helps organizations to advance their scalability with reduced operational efforts. Concerning storage capabilities, AWS is the most established storage provider in the market and supplies its users with a wide range of innovative storage products for cloud-native and hybrid users (Bandaru, 2020). This storage has served large enterprises such as GoPro, Honeywell, and NASA while using its innovative add-on services to simplify startup processes (Whitepaper, 2022).
AWS is relatively cheap in billing and pricing compared to other market leaders such as Google Cloud and Azure. AWS has used an innovative pricing strategy that gives companies flexibility by providing the option of packaged pricing for every additional service (Whitepaper, 2022). This has made it for small to large-sized organizations to choose the packages that satisfy their needs at pocket-friendly prices. This provides startups with a flexible option for paying more for additional services and storage as they grow instead of having to pay the full upfront cost.
AWS’s other competitive advantage is support and uptime, providing four different supports: developers, basic, enterprise, and business. The docket has already conducted many testing and tooling activities with big companies such as NASA and FDA, which benefits small businesses (Whitepaper, 2022). AWS competitor Google has, in several instances, been criticized for lack of sufficient experience in various dockets such as infrastructure-centric services. AWS’s support and uptime have successfully provided the business with solutions to most network, storage, and computing problems. Finally, AWS boasts of a safe and powerful security model, which the company keeps improving to ensure that it is up to date. In addition, AWS provides end users with adaptive security, including firewall, access control, and data encryption (Whitepaper, 2022). AWS is checked 24/7 to ensure the end users’ integrity, availability and confidentiality. By supporting some of the government’s essential and biggest players, such as NASA, Homeland security and the Department of State, AWS has proved secure for businesses requiring security guarantees. With this level of security, small businesses and organizations have been able to thrive and grow in scalability without worrying about security.
Recommendations for Improving AWS
AWS needs to improve its interface and integrate with other cloud services. For instance, AWS has poor connectors with Power BI, a Microsoft cloud service. This integration will ensure that users can use services from different providers. In addition, it should ensure that the integration interface is easy to use for the end users. This way, the company will expand its services to other dockets by ensuring that users of other cloud services can still hire their services.
AWS should ensure that they continue to simplify their services for easy human interactions. Although the AWS serves are easy to use, some users still complain about its complexity (Whitepaper, 2022). The company should avoid unnecessary shortcuts in the console and ensure only relevant shortcuts are available. This will make the interfaces easy for the consumers, giving them more confidence to adopt them.
Finally, Amazon needs to improve its security by focusing on fine-grained access to metadata. Although the company provides restricted access to cloud services, there is still room for improvement. AWS should keep continually inventing security features to stay ahead of potential threats. Holding such a massive amount of data, it is no doubt that the company needs to keep on improving its security features with the evolving technology.
Conclusion
AWS is the largest market player in terms of storage, networking and cloud-based services. The company offers a wide range of networks, communication and security components which have helped it to become the most advanced web service globally. In addition, AWS has various competitive features in its computing capability, storage capabilities, Billing and Pricing, Support, and Uptime and Security. However, it should ensure that it integrates its services with other cloud computing companies to earn a broad customer base. The other recommendations are simplifying its services and security for better human interactions and secure data storage.
References
Bandaru, A. (2020). Amazon Web Services. ResearchGate. Web.
Whitepaper, A. (2022). Overview of Amazon Web Services.