A remarkable American computer and cognitive scientist John McCarthy had proposed the idea of selling computing as a utility long ago around the year 1961. However, the term ‘Cloud computing’ remained dormant in the industry until 2006. It started plowing the field on March 19, 2006, when Amazon officially launched AWS by releasing its Simple Storage Service which is commonly known as S3. 

Hard to believe, it has already been 13 years since the inception of the Amazon Web Services or as we call AWS. With over a million active users, Amazon is still reaching new heights every day with every new service it adds to the list. 

So, what makes AWS one of its kind? 

Why in a world full of web service providers, one should go for Amazon Web Services? 

Well, the foremost argument is that Amazon is the most comprehensive platform on the globe that serves almost all our needs. It has over 165 services and products on its menu! Giants in various industries such as General Electric, AirAsia, Aircel, D-Link, Hitachi, Hungama Digital, LG Electronics, Mahindra Satyam, SAP, Suncorp, Byju’s, Georgia-Pacific, The Guardian, etc. have already trusted Amazon with their data. 

In addition to that, these are another 6 benefits of Amazon Web Services for your business!

1. EC2, Elastic Cloud Compute

EC2 has become a buzzword among all industries around the world. It is a web service by Amazon which ensures safe & scalable computing resources on the cloud. You can deploy your legion of servers seamlessly and have your EC2 instances ready online with no friction. EC2 instance in simple language is a virtual server. Select an operating system [Linux or Windows] AMI (Amazon Machine Image) and you are all set to go.

Earlier there used to be a delay while obtaining and booting a new instance. But, Amazon EC2 has radically reduced this time to a few minutes. This has eventually enhanced the scalability of the platform. Also, the instance will be charged per hour. Therefore, SMEs are finding AWS like a gift bestowed upon them! 

2. Confidentiality of your data

Every business comes with its own set of critical information. Maintaining the confidentiality of such data becomes crucial when you are hosting your data on the third-party cloud. Amazon has a robust privacy agreement that ensures the secrecy of your data.  

 

Why You Are Secure in the AWS Cloud from Amazon Web Services

3. Disaster Recovery

How well your business can cope up and keep running through and after a disaster? 

Business Continuity is the phenomenon that keeps a business running during a disaster and doesn’t let the aftermath bring it down. Amazon ensures the Disaster Recovery for your business. AWS offers a specialized Disaster Recovery System called ‘CloudEndure’. 

In general, the whole concept of DR revolves around two things – 

Recovery Time Objective (RTO): 

The maximum acceptable length of time for which the application can be offline.

Recovery Point Objective (RPO): 

The maximum acceptable amount of data might be lost from your application due to a major incident. This is calculated in the time unit. For example, the data of users who subscribed between 10 am to 10.50 am is lost.

AWS uses 4 fundamental techniques for back-up and disaster recovery: 

• Back-up and Recovery
• Data mirroring using Pilot Light
• Reduction of recovery time with Warm Standby
• Duplication of the active environment with Multi-Site

                [Resource: Rapidly Recover Mission-Critical Systems in a Disaster]

4. Integrity

In the juggernaut of data ‘traffic’, maintaining the integrity of data holds the field. Integrity includes the correctness, accuracy, trustworthiness, and consistency of the data. The data sent and the data received should not exhibit a difference. AWS has classified policies and arrangements for maintaining the reliability of the data.

5. Cost Savings

Pay-as-you-go

With AWS, you pay only for what you use. There are no hidden costs or latent expenses. You don’t have to pay any minimum amount. AWS doesn’t ask for a long-term commitment from your side. You can terminate the subscription as and when you wish without any termination costs. 

No recurring purchase of licenses 

With over 160+ web services, you can escape the expenditure in the purchase of perpetual licenses. For example, if you expect a spike in your website traffic during a happy hour sale, you can scale up the server allocation. Therefore you will be paying only for what you require and not extra. Estimate the cost beforehand by using the Total Cost of Ownership Calculator.

6. Flexibility

With AWS, you can work on your favorite operating system, programming application platform, and databases. We just saw in the last point that you can flexibly scale up your server allocation during peak time. Similarly, you can scale down in the times when you expect little or no traffic.  

We cannot deny the fact that AWS has taken a lot of load off SME’s shoulders. We have a team of AWS experts in QualiSpace who make it even simpler for you. You choose AWS and we help you. Check our service model here. And, if you have already chosen AWS, that’s even amazing!