Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides on-demand computing resources, storage, databases, and application services that enable customers to run virtually anything in the cloud. Key features include paying for only what is used, ability to grow and shrink resources as needed, and short lead times for standard applications. AWS offers a variety of services including virtual servers, storage, databases, load balancing, networking, and developer tools. Popular companies like Pinterest, Netflix, and Flipboard have built their infrastructure on AWS. An example use case is hosting an iPhone app using EC2 for computing, S3 for storage, RDS for databases, CloudFront as a content delivery network, and Simple Queue Services for distributing processing. Managing AWS requires expertise in security

1. TLA Managers | 5/17/13 | Steve Stern
Building on Amazon
Web Services
Getting the discussion started

2. What is AWS?
“Amazon Web Services offers a complete set of
infrastructure and application services that
enable you to run virtually everything in the
cloud: from enterprise applications and big data
projects to social games and mobile apps.”

3. Key Features
Pay for what you use, sort of
Fixed capital expenses become demand driven
expenses
Grow and shrink as necessary
Short lead times for standard applications

4. What can you buy?
Virtual Servers (Elastic Cloud) with or without pre-build app stacks / CPU or GPU
computing
Storage (S3) & Archiving (Glacier)
Automated Build (Beanstalk)
Global Network / CDN (Cloudfront)
Load Balancing
Database Services (from MySQL & SQL Server to Big Data)
Virtual Private Clouds with VPNs
Distributed DNS (Route 53)
Message Queueing / Emain / Push / Transcoding
Front End / Back End / API

5. Built on AWS
Pinterest
Netflix
Flipboard

6. Use case: iPhone APP
Hosting
EC2 for computing
S3 for storage
RDS for database
SimpleDB for basic queries
CloudFront as CDN
Simple Queue Services to distribute processing

7. Management
Is this the “End of IT”?
Finding the experts
Security, Reliability, etc.
Modeling Accountability and Responsibility
Is it really a Lego model?

8. The usual rules apply
Little stuff (e.g., stand up a server) is easy
Big stuff is hard (e.g., clusters of distributed
servers connected to databases with multiple
points of fault tolerance)
There are models that are almost what you want
Parts are “mature”, but it’s always in flux