59 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
59 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Amazon Web Services
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---
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## Amazon Web Services
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Amazon Web Services, or AWS for short, is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments on a
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paid subscription basis with a free-tier option available for 12 months. It along with Microsoft's Azure and Google's Cloud Platform are considered the three major
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public cloud vendors.
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The technology allows subscribers to have at their disposal a full-fledged virtual cluster of computers, available all the time, through the internet. AWS's version of
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virtual computers have most of the attributes of a real computer including hardware (CPU(s) & GPU(s) for processing, local/RAM memory, hard-disk/SSD storage); a choice
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of operating systems; networking; and pre-loaded application software such as web servers, databases, CRM, etc. Each AWS system also virtualizes its console I/O (keyboard,
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display, and mouse), allowing AWS subscribers to connect to their AWS system from anywhere in the world using a modern browser. The browser acts as a window into the
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virtual computer, letting subscribers log-in, configure and use their virtual systems just as they would a real physical computer.
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Subscribers can choose to deploy their AWS systems to provide internet-based services for their own and their customers' benefit. Since individuals or organizations
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using AWS do not physically own the AWS infrastructure, they do not have to deal with some of the maintenance tasks associated with owning a physical datacenter such as
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operating networking equipment.
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AWS in particular has also been expanding on their cloud offerings. They are providing innovative services such as AWS Lambda, in which users only need to focus on
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writing code and not on the servers that will be running their code (giving rise to the new *serverless* movement). As a result of these benefits, cloud computing
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platforms such as AWS have been popular among startups who might initially have less capital to invest into their Information Technology or IT. Instead, they can focus
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on building great products for their users and growing their business over time with AWS’s on demand model.
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Popular AWS services include:
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* Virtual Machines via the EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) platform
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* Databases including both SQL and NoSQL
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* S3 (Simple Storage Service)
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* SQS (Simple Queue Service)
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* Games development via the Amazon Lumberyard game development engine and subsequent hosting platform.
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* DynamoDB (Amazon Dynamo Data Base)
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* CloudWatch (Metrics and Alarms)
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* CodeDeploy (Deployments)
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* Lambda (Serverless)
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* Application Monitoring tools
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* Mobile development tools and platforms
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* Amazon Alexa development area
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#### AWS Certifications
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AWS offers many different certifications for it's practitioners. There are different tiers to AWS certs as well as role-based certifications.
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The tiers are:
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* Foundational
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* Associate
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* Professional
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For every role there are those three tiers.
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These roles include:
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* Architect
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* Developer
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* Operations
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AWS also offers a prerequisite AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials certification* relevant to anyone no matter their role.
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Outside of the standard roles there are specialty certifications for Advanced networking, Big Data, and Security.
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#### More Information:
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<!-- Please add any articles you think might be helpful to read before writing the article -->
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* [AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/)
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* [certifications](https://aws.amazon.com/certification/)
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