This document provides an overview of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its core components. It describes AWS as an ecosystem of interconnected services that provides scalable compute power, database storage, file storage, networking and security - with analogues for traditional on-premise IT infrastructure. Key AWS services covered include Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for virtual servers, Simple Database (SDB) and Relational Database Service (RDS) for databases, Simple Storage Service (S3) for file storage, Elastic Block Storage (EBS) for disk volumes, Route 53 for DNS and Identity and Access Management (IAM) for security and user management.

1. AWS –Amazon’s Cloud
Amazon Web Services.

2. Ecosystem
* Your application can use all or none of the layers.
They are simply stacked to show decreasing complexity…

3. Ecosystem (scaled back)
Computer:
DB
SDB/RDS
Computer:
EC2 Instance
Computer:
Application
Hosting
SAN:
Logical Unit
EBS
S3
SAN:
File Share
Computer:
DNS/AD
Route 53/IAM
These systems all have
traditional analogues…
Traditional
AWS

4. EC2 – Elastic Compute Cloud
 AWS analogue to a server
 Physical or virtual “instance” of a computer
 Configurable memory, CPU power, and hard disk space
 Can change underlying machine configuration without re-installing
 Pre configured and patched version of Windows (or others) available [AMI –
Amazon Machine Instance]
 Can turn on and off as needed (only pay while running)

5. SDB – Simple Database
 AWS Analogue to a really simple SQL table or an XML/JSON file
 Flat table structure accessed via a web service
 Extremely cheap and fast
 Basically a keyed entry with a property bag of attributes
RDS – Relational Data Services
 AWS Analogue to a server running relational database (SQL Server, Oracle,
MySQL)
 Fully hosted version of relational database
 Removes maintenance of operating system
 Scale power as needed with minimal outage
 Simple backup process, send a ‘snapshot’ to S3

6. S3 – Simple Storage Service
 AWS Analogue to a SAN or server with a file share
 Shared file storage accessed via a web service
 Create ‘buckets’ which are like parent folders
 Create ‘items’ with keys to fetch later
 Items can be keyed with [group/]file.txt to create the illusion of folders

7. EBS – Elastic Block Storage
 AWS Analogue to a SAN system that provides a network attached volume (i.e.
LUN or iSCSI)
 Network attached block storage for EC2 instances
 Survives a full shutdown of the EC2 instance (not temporal)
 Create a ‘volume’ and use like a remote attached hard drive
 Allows separation of OS and multiple data needs
 Allows independent backup of different volumes
 Can be re-attached to different EC2 instances
 Simple backup process, send a ‘snapshot’ to S3

8. Route 53
 Amazon controlled DNS
 Can be pinned to ‘Elastic IPs‘ which are locked to an EC2 instance
 Easily create and re-map entries in one place
IAM – I AM…
 Amazon controlled security model
 Honored by all of the services to manage permission in one place
 Control fine grain access to data as well as APIs that control AWS
 Can create multiple keysets from an account (one for each application)
 If one keyset is compromised you can remove it without updating anything
else

9. Ecosystem (scaled back)
Computer:
DB
Computer:
Application
Hosting
SAN:
Logical Unit
SAN:
File Share
Computer:
DNS/AD
Quickly revisit the
comparision…
Traditional
SDB/RDS
Computer:
EC2 Instance
EBS
S3
Route 53/IAM
AWS

10. Resources
 Amazon Web Services (AWS): http://aws.amazon.com
 AWS Overview Image: http://ramanalokanathan.com/ramana/wp-
content/uploads/2013/04/amazon-aws-cloud-diagram.png
 Author: Lawson Caudill – http://www.getthinktank.com