Overview of AWS Services
An introduction to the most common and essential Amazon Web Services categories and their primary functions.
Overview
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. Navigating this vast landscape can be overwhelming. This guide provides a high-level overview of the most fundamental services you're likely to encounter as a beginner.
Prerequisites
- An active AWS account
- Familiarity with the AWS Management Console
Compute
Services for running applications and code.
EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)
EC2 provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It's essentially a virtual server where you can run applications, databases, or web servers. You can choose from various instance types and operating systems.
AWS Lambda
A serverless compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. You only pay for the compute time you consume, and it automatically scales with demand.
Storage
Services for storing your data in the cloud.
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
An object storage service that provides industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. S3 is used to store and retrieve any amount of data, from simple files to large data lakes.
Databases
Services for managing and operating databases.
Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service)
A managed relational database service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. It supports multiple database engines like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server.
Amazon DynamoDB
A fast and flexible NoSQL database service for all applications that need consistent, single-digit millisecond latency at any scale. It's a fully managed service, meaning you don't have to worry about servers.
Networking & Content Delivery
Services for connecting and delivering content to users.
Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
VPC lets you provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. It gives you full control over your virtual networking environment.
Amazon CloudFront
A global content delivery network (CDN) service that securely delivers data, videos, applications, and APIs to customers globally with low latency and high transfer speeds.
Security, Identity, & Compliance
Services for securing your AWS environment and managing access.
IAM (Identity and Access Management)
IAM enables you to securely control access to AWS services and resources for your users. You can manage who is authenticated (signed in) and authorized (has permissions) to use resources.
Next Steps
This is just a brief look at some of the core services. As you continue, you will:
- Learn how to manage your AWS spending with budget alerts
- Dive deeper into individual services with our detailed guides
- Start building and deploying your own applications on AWS