Amazon Web Services, also known as AWS, is a cloud-based computing platform that is owned and operated by Amazon.com. It offers a wide range of tools and services that can help businesses become more agile and increase their innovation. 

AWS Services include computation, storage, analytics, networking, and mobile services. AWS is the world’s most popular cloud computing platform with over a million customers in 190 countries. It is used by businesses, from startups to large corporations, organizations, and institutions to build applications.

AWS allows companies to quickly and easily build, manage, and scale applications and services. It can be accessed from anywhere that has internet access. AWS does this by providing needed infrastructure so developers can focus on their projects.

With AWS, developers do not need to worry about storing and analyzing data, how content is going to be delivered, or where they are going to create code.  AWS provides flexible and cost effective solutions to these types of problems. This helps companies reduce cost while increasing efficiency.

This article will answer the following questions:

• Why is AWS useful to app developers?

• Why do developers request administrative access to AWS?

• Do developers require administrative access to AWS?

• What are the most commonly used tolls and services of AWS?

• How does AWS charge for their services?

Why is AWS useful to app developers?

Amazon Web Services is an important tool for developers. It provides a cloud platform that allows them to quickly create reliable and scalable applications. With its wide range of storage, database, and networking services, it allows developers to write code for their applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.

It also provides cost-effective, pay as you go pricing. This makes it attractive for developers who want to build applications quickly and cost effectively. It also allows them to scale their applications at a later date.  

Why do developers request administrative access to AWS?

Developers request administrative access to Amazon Web Services to facilitate faster development. While the developers are setting up servers, there is often a complex relationship between the numerous resources and services that need to be established and maintained. Allowing administrative access enables developers to set up those relationships between the different systems without needing to communicate why each system is required. 

In addition, it may be difficult for an app owner or manager to understand the technicalities involved with AWS and the relationships that needs to be established between different services. It may be simpler, faster, and less confusing to give the developer the access they need. AWS offers foundational services including compute power, network, storage, gateway load balancing, and data warehouse services. AWS offers over 200 total services, which can be overwhelming and confusing.

Administrative access to AWS is also requested so developers can manage advanced security systems. They may also need administrative access so they can monitor and troubleshoot issues when they arise. Without access, they would need to request individual permissions every time something new comes up.

Do developers require administrative access to AWS?

App and software developers may not require administrative access to AWS, but without it, the product owner or product manager may need the knowledge to manipulate some of the AWS services on their own. Without administrative access, the product owner or manager may also need to give multiple permissions for individual access to various AWS tools and services as their app is being developed. 

If the developer cannot access to the tools and services they need to implement and integrate into the app and does not give the developer permission, the product owner or manager would need to do it themselves.

What are the most commonly used tools and services of AWS?

The most common features of Amazon Web Services include the following: 

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): A web service that allows users to easily launch and manage virtual machines, or instances, in the cloud. With EC2, users can quickly create a virtual machine and load the machine with their own software. The machine can then be scaled up or down as needed.

• Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS): A service that provides secure, high performance storage for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances. EBS provides persistent block-level storage volumes that can be attached to and detached from EC2 instances as needed, allowing for dynamic storage to meet application needs.

• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3): A highly reliable, cost effective storage service that can be used to store data on the cloud. S3 provides a simple web interface for users to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web.

• Amazon Relational Database Services (RDS): A managed cloud data service that allows users to quickly launch and manage relational databases in the cloud. Relational databases are organized into tables with rows and columns, and each item on the table is related to one another. RDS is highly scalable and provides many features that help users manage their databases more efficiently.

• Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (ELB): A web service that helps distribute traffic in an application. It automatically routes traffic to multiple instances of the application so they are not all bogged down on one. This provides fault tolerance because it helps to ensure the application is always available to users and can handle incoming requests.

• Amazon CloudFront: A content delivery network(CDN) that helps to deliver content to users around the world. It provides low latency and high transfer speeds.

• Amazon DynamoDB: A NoSQL database service that is highly available, scalable, and secure. A NoSQL database is a non-relational database that stores data in an unstructured way. DynamoDB provides high performance and low latency for applications that need to access large amounts of data.

• Amazon Lambda: A serverless computing service that allows users to run code for applications without needing to manage underlying infrastructure. Lambda is perfect for applications that need to scale quickly and can handle unpredictable workloads.

• Amazon Machine Learning (ML): A service that allows users to easily build, train, and deploy machine learning models in the cloud. This helps to reduce the time and cost associated with building and managing custom machine learning solutions.

• Amazon Redshift: A cloud data warehouse that makes it easy to store and analyze large amounts of data. It is highly scalable and provides a fast, cost-effective way to analyze data.

• Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS): A message queuing service that helps to manage message-based communication between applications. SQS helps to ensure that messages are delivered in the correct order. It also allows for asynchronous communication between the different components of an application. 

• Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS): A highly scalable push notification service that is easy to set up and operate. It is highly scalable and is a simple and efficient way to fan-out messages to subscribers. SNS allows for notifications to be sent to varying number of recipients with no additional set-up required. It can provide notifications through mobile devices, email, and social media.

Go to “When using AWS, what tools and services are essential for my app?” for specific detail on these and other services.

How does AWS charge for their services?

The method used to determine AWS charges depends on the service. Some services are offered free indefinitely for the first tier of service including Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Lambda, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon SNS. Amazon CloudFront, for example, is free for up to 1 TB of data storage and 10,000,000 HTTP and HTTPS requests per month. Similarly, Amazon SNS is free to use for up to 1 million requests per month. Once you have reached those limits, a cost would apply. 

AWS also offers a number of services with free 12-month trials. These services include Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and Amazon SQA  It is also for the first tier of service, and if your usage extends the first tier, you would need to pay for additional usage. For example, Amazon S3 provides 5 GB of standard storage per month for 12 months. When your usage exceeds that, you would need to pay. 

How AWS charges for their services and the costs involved depends on the service. Some services, consequently, are much more affordable than others. Some services charge based on the amount of time you utilize the service while others charge on the amount of storage space you need. A product owner or developer would need to look at the cost of each service separately to determine total cost and possible future costs as you scale your app and your usage increases. 

Matraex is an app development company in Boise, Idaho. Do you have any app development or tech questions? We’d like to be your source for unbiased answers so you be an informed consumer.

Contact Matraex, call us at (208) 344-1115, direct message a question on our website, or put a question on our Google Business Profile. We look forward to talking with you.