Technology

What is Amazon Web Services and Why Is It So Successful?

By Christy Bella | March 29, 2021

Table of Contents

Amazon is a very successful US company who are predominantly known for their very convenient e-commerce service. Even before the health pandemic, households around the world used the Amazon e-commerce website to order all types of products for delivery to their home and sales have rocketed through the pandemic.

In 2020, almost half of all US e-commerce spending was through Amazon, showing just how much it dominates the industry. However, Amazon offers even more services than e-commerce, such as Amazon Prime Video, the streaming service and Amazon Web Services, the cloud platform. The technology giants offer solutions for consumers and businesses of all sizes and their cloud platform is the world’s most broadly adopted one.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a set of over 200 featured services from their global data centers, including storage, machine learning and analytics, amongst many more powerful solutions. They also provide purpose-built databases of a wide range of applications, specific to your business requirements in terms of cost and performance.

Amazon already was already a trusted technology company, so when they launched their web services, customers who already used the brand were confident that Amazon would be able to provide the same level of high-quality solution that they provide across their other services.

AWS soon became the most popular cloud service provider on the market and since its initial launch in 2006, it has continued to expand to offer the largest range of web services available from any cloud provider.

Amongst the plethora of great products provided by AWS are innovation enablers such as IoT and Machine Learning, as well as application integration and cost management products.

Why is AWS so successful?

Powerful security features

As well as providing the largest range of cloud services and having a string reputation for technology services, AWS offers a higher level of security than other cloud providers. With hacking and cybercrime becoming a regular problem for businesses of all sizes, having strong security features is more important than ever to protect data. AWS has a range of powerful security features to protect businesses and their customers from data breaches and other security issues.

Great value for money

There are a number of different price plans available for AWS and the pay-as-you-go plan is a very popular option. This ensures that you are not over-paying for services that you are not using, so if you are a start-up and you are not sure what exactly you will need, the pay-as-you-go plan gives you a great place to start, so that you are not spending money unnecessarily.

There is also a free tier that allows you to use the platform without any cost for 12 months. So, it is easy to explore the different features and discover which ones will work well for your business, without the upfront cost or being tied into a contract.

Unlike many cloud services, AWS regularly reduces their prices, despite continuing to add more products to their customers. This makes it a very competitively priced platform, ensuring that they retain customers, unlike providers who introduce price hikes after an initial lower fee.

Web hosting

The web host that you choose for your website is critical and it will determine factors such as how fast your website runs, how secure it is and the amount of unavailability through downtime. If you opt for a cheap, low quality web host, you risk damaging the reputation of your business, which is one of the key reasons that business owners prefer to use a trustworthy platform such as AWS for their web hosting service.

AWS is suitable for anything from a small business website built in WordPress using a shared server to global e-commerce websites with dedicated web hosting which are
processing millions of transactions a day. The web hosting service is also available with the pay-as-you-go option, which is ideal for a new website where you do not know how much data storage you are likely to require.

Scalability

When you start up a business, you want technology solutions that will continue to grow as your business grows. AWS products are scalable to make sure you do not encounter issues as your business starts to expand.

Everything under one provider

With AWS offering such a wide range of products, you can use one provider for all of the products you need, rather than setting up accounts with various different providers. As well as saving you time researching new product providers, keeping your products with AWS will also ensure you are familiar with how the processes of setting up services and contacting support.

Innovation leader

Amazon’s success speaks for itself, the company continues to expand and generate even more profits because it does not stand still. They are constantly innovating and introducing more products that are designed around the requirements of their customers.

Microsoft and Google are Amazon’s top competitors but AWS was launched in 2006, while Google Cloud did not join the market until 2008 and Microsoft Azure even later in 2010. In those early years, Amazon was able to attract some big clients who have stuck with them due to the great service they have provided. As long as a company delivers a high-quality service, there is always a low chance that customers will switch to another provider.

Global availability

AWS also offers more regions than any other cloud provider. Local Zones enables you to use locations that are closest to your users. You are able to place resources in multiple locations to avoid the problems that come with only using one location and there being some type of failure.

These are just some of the reasons that AWS continues to be the most popular cloud platform available and over the next few years, Microsoft and Google will be pushing them further, by introducing more innovations of their own to try and obtain higher percentages of the market share.