Understanding the Fundamentals of Amazon Web Services

Clouds, as we know from our childhood, are accumulations of tiny droplets of frozen water crystals that are high in the sky, hovering around our planet. So, what do these clouds do? Well, they provide a service to the residents of planet Earth; that is, they bring us rain. Something (clouds) that is somewhere (up in the sky) provides us with a service by bringing rain. This same concept can be applied to cloud computing.

In cloud computing, the something refers to IT services, such as compute, databases, storage, networks, and security. These services are hosted somewhere in a secure place (that is, a data center) and are accessible without us needing to worry or even think about how they are configured and licensed. Thus, cloud computing consists of a host of services, which are hosted in a remote location instead of a local...

Examples of cloud services

Let's take a look at some simple examples of accessing cloud services.

One example is filling in a registration form and using public email services (such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo). In this case, we start using a service; we don't worry about how the mail services are configured, how the infrastructure is secured, how the software is licensed, or whether highly qualified staff is available to maintain the infrastructure. We just start using email services by providing a secure password.

Another example could be a mobile phone or an electricity connection at home or the office. We just buy a SIM card from a telecom provider, or buy an electrical connection from a local power company, and we don't need to worry about how the telecom network works, or how power is generated and reaches our home or office. We just use them and pay bills...

The evolution of cloud computing

The evolution of the cloud is shown in the following diagram:

Figure 2.1: The evolution of the cloud

The evolution of the cloud started in the 1950s and concepts such as service-oriented architecture, virtualization, autonomic, and utility computing are the stepping stones of today's cloud computing:

1. In the 1950s, mainframe computers were shared among various users through dumb terminals to save costs and enable the efficient use of resources.

2. In the 1970s, virtual machines (VMs) were developed to overcome the disadvantages of earlier technologies. VMs enabled us to run more than one different operating system (OS) simultaneously in isolated environments, providing all essential resources (such as CPU, disk controllers, RAM, and NICs) individually to all VMs.
3. In the 1990s, telecom companies started dedicated point-to-point data circuits...

More about AWS

AWS is a public cloud service; it provides a range of IT services that can be used as building blocks for creating cutting-edge, robust, and scalable enterprise-grade solutions. It can be used to host anything from simple static websites to complex three-tier architectures, from scientific applications to modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and from online training to live broadcasting events, such as sports events, political elections, and more.

According to Gartner's Magic Quadrant (MQ), which was published in April 2018, AWS is a leader in cloud IaaS. AWS is way ahead of its competitors after pioneering the cloud IaaS market in 2006. The Magic Quadrant image and more details can be found at https://pages.awscloud.com/gartner-2018-cloud-IaaS.html.

The MQ is a series of market research reports published by Gartner—the United States-based research...

The benefits of using AWS over a traditional data center

There are significant benefits of using AWS over a traditional data center, and some of them are listed here:

• Switching from Capital Expenditure (CapEx) to Operational Expenditure (OpEx): There is no need to bear the huge upfront cost of purchasing hardware or software and making a CapEx provision in the budget for procuring the same. With AWS, you only pay for what services you use on a monthly basis as OpEx.
• The cost benefit of massive economies of scale: Since AWS purchases everything in bulk, this gives them a cost advantage. AWS passes on the benefit of this cost advantage to their customers by offering services at a low cost. As the AWS cloud becomes larger and larger, these massive economies of scale benefit AWS, as well as end customers.
• There is no need to guess the required infrastructure capacity: Most of the...

Accessing AWS services

Users can access AWS services in multiple ways; individual services or the whole infrastructure can be accessed using any of the following means:

• AWS Management Console: This is a simple to use, browser-based graphical user interface that customers can use to manage their AWS resources.
• The AWS Command-Line Interface (CLI): This is mostly used by system administrators to perform day-to-day administration activities. There are individual sets of commands available for each AWS service.
• AWS Software Development Kits (SDKs): AWS helps the user reduce the complexity of coding by providing SDKs for a number of programming languages, including Android, iOS, Java, Python, PHP, .NET, Node.js, Go, and Ruby. These SDKs can be used to create custom applications to meet specific organizational needs.
• Query APIs: AWS provides a number of HTTP endpoints. These endpoints...

An overview of AWS

AWS provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud, and powers many businesses in almost 190 countries across the world. The following portion of this chapter provides a high-level overview of the basic AWS concepts that you should try to understand before you start working with AWS services.

AWS' global infrastructure

AWS services are available in multiple locations across the globe. AWS provides these services with their infrastructure spread across multiple geographical locations. The AWS infrastructure is segregated in the form of regions, availability zones (AZs), and edge locations, based on geography. Let's now try and understand some of the basic concepts...

Understanding virtualization

Virtualization is a process of virtually segregating physical hardware resources into a set of virtual resources that can independently work as a computing resource and provide customized and dedicated CPU, RAM, or storage. Each server and its resources are created in an isolated environment. Each isolated environment is abstracted from the physical OS and underlying hardware configuration. Such resources are called VMs or instances.

Virtualization is achieved by using virtualization software that maintains the abstract and virtual layers on top of physical hardware. Let's understand these virtualization software and virtualization types in the following sections.

Virtualization types based on virtualization software

...

Elasticity versus scalability

Elasticity and scalability are two important characteristics of cloud computing. They describe the way a cloud infrastructure is able to expand and shrink to match the actual dynamic workload, which is described as follows:

• Scalability: This means increasing the capacity of an existing instance (that is, scale up) or adding more instances in parallel to an existing instance (that is, scale out). Scalability is essential in order to achieve elasticity:
  • Scale up: Changing the instance type from small to large (that is, changing to more memory or compute) is called scaling up; it is also called vertical scaling. It may require stopping the existing and running instance. Usually, scaling up is done in order to get more compute and memory on the same instance. Scaling up is usually recommended for applications that do not support clustering modes easily...

Creating a new AWS account

Creating a new account on AWS is as easy as signing up for an email account. The steps to create an AWS account are as follows:

1. In a web browser, open the following URL: https://aws.amazon.com/.
2. Click on the Sign up button.
3. Fill in the form given in the subsequent screen, and then click on the Continue button, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 2.7: Contact information

4. On the subsequent screen, select the account type as either Personal or Professional and then fill in the contact information. Select the account type as Professional if you're going to use this account within your company, educational institution, or organization; otherwise, you can select Personal.
5. On the subsequent screen, fill in the payment information, and then click on Secure submit.
6. On the subsequent screen, fill in the contact details and verify the CAPTCHA...

Deleting an AWS account

AWS provides you with an option to delete or close an AWS account. For closing your account, you need to log in to the AWS account using the root user. To do this, execute the following steps:

1. Go to My Account by clicking on your account name, which is given in the top-right corner of the screen. The account name is usually the name given at the time of creating the AWS account.
2. When you click on the account name, a drop-down menu appears.
3. Select My Account from the drop-down menu; it opens the account settings page in a new tab. At the bottom of the page, there is an option to close your account.
4. You can select the checkbox under Close Account and, finally, click on the Close Account button.
5. Be very careful if you're just checking the interface, as all AWS resources and data are wiped out when the account is closed.
6. Once the account is closed, there...

Understanding the AWS dashboard

Having a good understanding of the AWS dashboard is essential for performing development activities. There are a number of components of the AWS dashboard, as shown in the following screenshot. The AWS dashboard layout may change from time to time; an overview of the AWS dashboard can be viewed as follows:

Figure 2.11: The AWS dashboard

Components of the AWS dashboard

As you can see in the preceding screenshot, there are a number of components on the AWS dashboard. The following table gives you an overview of these components:

	This icon represents the console home. By clicking on this, you can go to the dashboard home.
	This drop-down menu lists a number of AWS services. By...

Core AWS services

AWS services are divided into various groups, based on their use. The following tables describe a number of services provided by AWS with a brief description of the services. As AWS continuously evolves its service catalog, there may be periodic additions made to this list. You can refer to following URL for the latest product listing: https://aws.amazon.com/products/

AWS compute services

The following table describes the AWS compute services in brief:

AWS service	Description
EC2	This provides scalable compute capacity, such as virtual servers.
EC2 Container Service	This is a highly scalable and high performance container management service. This supports Docker and runs on a managed...

The shared security responsibility model

Before designing and making cloud solutions operational, it is important to understand the security responsibility that is shared between AWS and the customers who consume these services. The following diagram distinguishes between the responsibilities of AWS as a cloud service provider and the customers who consume these services:

Figure 2.12: The shared security responsibility model

Amazon promises that security is its highest priority as a public cloud service provider. AWS is committed to providing consistent, robust, and secure AWS public cloud services to their customers. Amazon achieves this by securing foundation services (that is, compute, storage, database, and networking) and global infrastructures (such as regions, AZs, and edge locations). Customers have to manage the security of their data, OSes, application platforms, applications...

AWS soft limits

For every AWS account, region-based limits are enabled for each AWS service. Such limits restrict an AWS account to provision resources up to a specific limit. For example, AWS imposes a soft limit of around 20 EC2 instances in a new account. This limit may vary according to resource types and the respective AWS services. Some of these limits are soft limits, and you can raise a support request to AWS for revising this limit in your AWS account.

AWS Trusted Advisor displays the account usage and limits for each specific service region. Authorized IAM users or root accounts can place a request with AWS Support in order to increase these service limits.

Here's how you can request a change in service limits:

1. Log in to your AWS account; in the top right-hand corner, click on the Support drop-down menu and select Support Center.
2. Click on Create Case and select...

DR with AWS

For any enterprise, unplanned downtime can have a devastating impact. Unplanned downtime not only impacts the ongoing business, but it can also create an adverse impact on the future of the organization. Any catastrophe or disaster can bring a city or a region to a standstill and can impact businesses for a prolonged period of time. It is critical for organizations to plan for disasters that may halt their business. AWS provides a number of services and features that can be used to overcome unplanned downtime arising out of natural disasters or human error.

DR is the process of designing an architecture that is able to recover from any disaster situation within a stipulated time. The cost of DR planning is inversely proportional to the time required to recover the infrastructure. Traditionally, in the case of a private data center, it may be required to create similar...

Summary

This chapter elaborated on the fundamentals of Amazon Web Services. We started off with providing a basic understanding of what the cloud is and took time to go through a brief journey of familiarizing ourselves with the basic building blocks of Amazon Web Services. This chapter highlighted some of the critical aspects of how AWS works and provided an overview of AWS' core infrastructure. In the next chapter, we will get familiar with Identity and Access Management (IAM).