AWS
Amazon Web Services
In short
AWS (Amazon Web Services) is Amazon's cloud platform: more than 200 pay-as-you-go services for servers, storage, databases and much more.
What is AWS?
Amazon Web Services launched its first major services in 2006: S3 for storing files and EC2 for renting virtual servers. Instead of buying and running hardware, companies could start servers in minutes and pay only for what they used. AWS has since grown into the largest cloud provider, used by startups, governments and many of the world's best-known apps.
Its services cover almost every layer of an application. EC2 provides virtual machines, S3 stores objects such as images and backups, RDS and DynamoDB run managed databases, Lambda runs functions without servers to manage, CloudFront is a CDN, and IAM controls who may do what. There are also services for queues, machine learning, analytics and networking.
AWS runs data centers grouped into regions around the world, such as Frankfurt or Virginia, and each region contains several isolated availability zones. Spreading an application across zones keeps it running when one data center has trouble. Resources are managed through the web console, the command-line tool, SDKs or infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform and CloudFormation.
A common misconception is that the cloud is automatically cheap or secure. Costs grow with usage and can surprise teams that leave resources running, and AWS follows a shared responsibility model: Amazon secures the underlying infrastructure, while customers must configure access, encryption and their own applications correctly. Its main competitors are Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Key takeaways
- AWS is Amazon's cloud platform, with more than 200 pay-as-you-go services.
- Core services include EC2 (servers), S3 (storage), RDS (databases) and Lambda.
- Regions contain several availability zones for resilience.
- Security is shared: Amazon secures the cloud, customers secure what they run in it.
- Its main competitors are Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Example
# Copy a file into an S3 bucket
aws s3 cp ./report.pdf s3://example-reports/2026/report.pdf
# List running EC2 instances in a region
aws ec2 describe-instances \
--region eu-central-1 \
--filters "Name=instance-state-name,Values=running" \
--query "Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId"Readers ask
What is the difference between EC2 and S3?
EC2 rents virtual servers that run your software. S3 stores files, called objects, in buckets and serves them over HTTP. Many applications use both.
Is AWS free?
AWS has a free tier with limited usage of many services, mainly for learning and small projects. Beyond that, you pay for what you use, such as server hours, storage and data transfer.
What is an AWS region?
A geographic area, such as Frankfurt or Ireland, where AWS runs several separate data centers called availability zones. You choose a region for each resource, usually close to your users.
Often compared
See also
- Cloud ComputingDevOps & Cloud, p. 10Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing resources, such as servers, storage, and databases, over the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.
- ServerlessDevOps & Cloud, p. 47Serverless is a cloud model in which the provider runs your code on demand, manages all the servers, scales automatically, and bills only for actual use.
- Object StorageDevOps & Cloud, p. 37Object storage is a way of storing data as whole objects, each with a unique key and metadata, in flat buckets that scale to huge numbers of files over HTTP.
- Lambda FunctionProgramming Fundamentals, p. 33A lambda function is a small function written inline without a name, usually passed straight to another function such as a sorting or filtering helper.
- Virtual MachineDevOps & Cloud, p. 53A virtual machine is a software-based computer that runs its own operating system on shared physical hardware, isolated from other machines on the same host.
- TerraformDevOps & Cloud, p. 52Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool: you describe cloud resources in configuration files, and one command creates or updates them to match.
- AzureDevOps & Cloud, p. 4Microsoft Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform, offering hundreds of on-demand services such as virtual machines, databases and AI models worldwide.
- Google CloudDevOps & Cloud, p. 24Google Cloud is Google's public cloud platform, offering compute, storage, data and AI services on the global infrastructure behind Google's own products.
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