Building a Strong Cloud Foundation with Amazon Web Services in 2024: A Comprehensive Guide

Is it worth implementing the cloud in your organization?

Did you hear about AWS,  but want to know more? 

How to build the cloud foundation? 

We’ll do our best to answer these questions in the article. But, first things first, let’s discuss some facts about the cloud. 

Quick Facts About the Cloud

• Issues like data loss, subpar performance because of obsolete infrastructure and inadequate resources are common problems that limit the potential of business growth.
• The popularity of cloud computing grew by 635% between 2010 and 2020. Currently estimated to be worth more than $545 billion. 
• 61% of the cloud infrastructure is provided by some big names like Amazon, Google and Microsoft. 
• As of today, more than 60% of corporate data around the world is stored in the cloud.
• Cloud infrastructure can be implemented in all sorts of businesses in various sectors. A publishing house could benefit as equally from cloud services and products as a  software development company would.

This article will describe why cloud computing is a necessity of every business today, and to be more precise, why cloud services provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) are so popular among elite organizations. We’ll speak from our experience at SumatoSoft, since we use AWS often during our software development services. 

We will talk about various AWS cloud consulting services and the impact they can have on your business. But before that, one must understand cloud technology and AWS Cloud services. This includes AWS, AWS consulting, AWS products and services as a whole. 

What Is Cloud Computing

Cloud computing, offered by “Cloud Service Providers,” encompasses services like Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and Ifrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) on subscription terms. The difference between these terms is out of this topic, so feel free to read our related article, where we compare Heroku and AWS and explain the difference between them. 

Think of tools like Dropbox for storage or Office365 for software. They allow businesses and individuals alike to own a virtual computer and store data, host servers and do much more at minimal cost without having to invest in the entire thing in its physical form.

One of cloud computing’s paramount appeals is cost-effectiveness. Why splurge $1000 on an on-premise server (local server) when AWS can offer the same capabilities for less? Plus, bid farewell to the hassles of repairs, upkeep, and data backups. The cloud provider’s got it covered. 

This is just one benefit. Let’s examine the other. 

Gains of the Cloud

Quick Deployment 

A cloud service is easily deployed with just a few clicks. Even people with no professional knowledge of IT and Cloud technology can set up their own cloud applications with the help of cloud service providers. 

Automatic Updates 

Cloud service providers ensure that your applications are always updated to safeguard them from any kind of vulnerability. This means you won’t have to worry about updating your apps for the latest patch every time the company fixes something or rolls out a new feature.

Cost Effective 

Cloud computing is cost-effective. You only pay for what you use and the cost of availing a platform or infrastructure is nominal compared to investing in physical hardware for the same purpose.

Scalability 

You can always increase or decrease the capacity of your cloud platform based on your needs. This is applicable for storage, servers, and computing capacity alike. If your business surges and you need more space for storage or need bigger servers, cloud service providers ensure you are provided adequate resources. 

Data Security 

Cloud providers implement various security services like firewalls, intrusion prevention, and anti-malware on their platforms to make sure user data is fully secured. While these security services can also be purchased by businesses for local use, cloud providers do this for no additional charge to keep your data safe.

Collaboration 

Having your data and application run on cloud makes it easier for everyone in your organization to access and provide their input for projects when needed. This makes collaboration easier and helps increase work efficiency. 

Disaster Recovery 

A cloud server is always well backed up. There are copies of your data securely stored across multiple physical servers around the world to make sure data recovery is possible in case something goes wrong.  Also, backing up and restoring your data is super easy and efficient on the cloud.

AWS Isn’t Our Only Love, but We Like It

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a popular choice for several businesses because it offers a wide range of cloud computing services at competitive prices. AWS allow companies to scale their services and access computing resources on demand, making it a flexible and cost-effective option. Some big names that use AWS as their cloud provider are Facebook, Netflix and LinkedIn to name a few. Also, it has been estimated that almost 285,000 small companies use AWS, proving that the service is in reach and suited to businesses of all kinds. 

Additionally, AWS provides a range of tools and features that make it easy for businesses to manage and use cloud-based services, such as security and monitoring tools, virtual private networks (VPNs), and support for multiple programming languages and frameworks. Overall, AWS can provide many benefits for businesses, including improved scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. 

What About AWS Consulting Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Consulting is a service offered by Amazon to help businesses get the most out of their AWS cloud-based services. AWS Consulting services can help businesses with a variety of tasks, such as setting up and configuring their AWS services, developing and deploying applications on AWS, and optimizing their use of AWS to reduce costs and improve performance. 

AWS Consulting services can also provide expert guidance and support to a wide range of businesses in and out of the IT industry. AWS consultant services can also be utilized in service-providing organizations, helping them to navigate the complex world of cloud computing and make the most of the benefits that AWS offers. 

AWS API: The Cloud Power At One Place

AWS offers over 200 fully featured services spanning across computing, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, developer tools, management tools, security, enterprise applications, and much more. The most popular are: 

• Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service);
• Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud);
• Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service);
• Amazon Lambda;
• Amazon DynamoDB. 

How do we effectively manage them? Easily! With the help of API.

With AWS’s robust API offerings, developers can amplify their applications by tapping into the vast resources of AWS. Imagine integrating with Amazon S3 for storage, EC2 for computing power, or RDS for database prowess – the possibilities are vast.

Moreover, AWS’s platform is ripe for automation. With intuitive scripting tools that bypass complex coding, even those without deep technical expertise can master it. These tools revolutionize task management; instead of repeatedly setting up, for instance, an EC2 instance with its required settings, an AWS script streamlines the process, saving time and effort. Think of it as an efficient, automated assembly line for your cloud tasks.

AWS Features that Businesses and Developers Appreciate

High Availability

High availability is a hallmark of robust systems, characterized by continuous operational performance despite potential failures. AWS enhances high availability through multiple geographically isolated Availability Zones within each region. These zones are complete with independent power, cooling, and networking to mitigate single points of failure. 

AWS’s Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) complements this by distributing incoming traffic across numerous instances, ensuring workload balance and uptime. Moreover, AWS’s services are designed to be resilient, where even if one component fails, others can seamlessly take over to maintain service continuity.

Auto Scaling

Auto Scaling on AWS is an intelligent service monitoring your applications to automatically adjust computing resources. It scales resources up or down according to predefined metrics and demands, optimizing performance and cost. With AWS, you can anticipate the need for additional storage and computing power, which is provisioned on-demand, ensuring that you pay only for what you use. 

This service supports various AWS resources, such as Amazon EC2 instances, AWS Aurora, and Amazon ECS, among others, enabling dynamic scaling plans and efficient resource utilization.

Resources Guarantee

AWS’s resource guarantee provides assurance to customers of the availability of essential computing and storage resources needed to run their applications smoothly, even during high demand. This guarantee helps prevent performance degradation or service outages. It encompasses various services, including Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, and Amazon RDS. 

Dedicated EC2 Instances and options for dedicated CPU hardware and leased lines from AWS data centers also fall under this umbrella, offering enhanced data processing and security transmission with low latency.

Security Features

AWS’s comprehensive security framework includes features that protect data and applications on the cloud. AWS’s high-security data centers, equipped with the IAM framework, offer encryption both in transit and at rest, with customer-managed keys. 

Tools like AWS Firewall Manager and Amazon GuardDuty offer centralized management of security measures and real-time threat monitoring. Data is protected with strong encryption standards such as 128-bit or 256-bit SSL during transit, and AWS Artifact provides access to compliance reports and tools for adjusting security settings.

Specialized Services

AWS provides an array of specialized services for various business needs, from container management with Amazon ECS and EKS to data routing with Amazon Route 53 for low latency. 

AWS Glue facilitates data preparation for analytics, and AWS Lambda allows for running serverless code. These specialized services are designed to manage specific workloads effectively and are part of AWS’s commitment to offering tailored, advanced features to their customers.

Low-Cost Storage

AWS offers a variety of storage solutions designed to be economical. Options range from traditional HDDs to high-performance SSDs and NVMe SSDs. Amazon S3 offers low-cost storage options, while Amazon Glacier is suitable for archival storage. AWS’s S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically shifts data across storage tiers, optimizing for cost and efficiency. 

The diverse storage portfolio caters to different needs, from frequently accessed data to long-term cold storage, ensuring that AWS customers can find the right balance between cost and performance.

Low-Cost Cloud

AWS provides cost-effective solutions for web and data servers, such as the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for scalable compute capacity and Amazon Lightsail for simplified virtual private server (VPS) management. 

AWS also offers financial management tools like AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Savings Plans, which help customers monitor, manage, and optimize costs. These tools, along with the opportunity to consult with AWS experts, allow for tailored and economical cloud service deployment.

What You Need to Build a Cloud Foundation

The above-mentioned features and services that AWS provides are enough to make anyone want to migrate their data to the cloud. However, there are a few key things that should be done before transferring your existing data and application to the cloud for maximum efficiency. Creating a robust cloud foundation is a must to ensure that your data and applications are secure and function as they are supposed to. Here’s an effective way to do all this: 

Preparation

• Choose a cloud computing platform, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Microsoft Azure or any other cloud service provider that you think is the best for your business.
• Acquire all necessary tools and applications that you’ll need to manage and automate your cloud infrastructures, including infrastructure as code (IaC) tools, monitoring, and logging tools, and configuration management tools.

Planning

• Formulate a plan after making a clear-cut understanding of your business model and objectives. A projected outcome from migrating your business to the cloud should also be traced to weigh out how the cloud can help you achieve them. 
• A proper plan for data migration is a must to make sure all your existing workloads and applications function optimally after they are moved to the cloud.

Execution

• A team of skilled and experienced cloud professionals should then be hired to help you design, build, and maintain your cloud infrastructure and make sure nothing is misplaced, malfunctioning, or corrupted during or after migration to the cloud platform.

With these elements in place, you will be well-positioned to build a robust and scalable cloud foundation for your business. You could hire an AWS consultant to guide you through the entire process or direct your existing IT team to do the same. Below we will discuss some of the key components of the AWS cloud architecture and AWS consultant services in depth to provide more insight into these products and services.

AWS Services Worth Getting Familiar With

Below, we delve into some AWS services we often use. 

Lightsail

LightSail is a simple and affordable cloud-based virtual private server (VPS) offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). LightSail is designed to be easy to use and provides customers with a cost-effective way to run applications and store data on the AWS platform. With LightSail, customers can choose from a variety of preconfigured instances, including Linux, Windows, and LAMP stack, and can easily launch and manage their instances using the LightSail control panel. LightSail also provides customers with automatic backups, DNS management, and a static IP address, making it a convenient and cost-effective solution for running applications on AWS.

These pre-configured VPS servers come with many features and advantages that make them stand out compared to other VPS service providers. For instance, Lightsail gets your web server set up and started with its preconfigured Linux and Windows application stacks. Paired with an intuitive management console panel, using Lightsail is as easy as using the control panel on your desktop computer.

Cost efficiency is another advantage of Lightsail since it bundles all the resources that your server-based application might need and generates an all-in-one pricing package that is economical and easy to manage. This will allow you to focus on your work rather than having to worry about the costs and pricing of multiple resources and features.

Additionally, Lightsail automatically configures the entire networking stack and implements necessary security services to make your cloud platform fast and secure. It also manages credentials, access, and authorization settings, sparing you the headache of fine-tuning small details.

Glacier

Amazon Glacier is a low-cost, long-term storage service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon Glacier is designed to provide customers with a cost-effective way to store their data for extended periods of time, such as for archival purposes or for compliance requirements. While this consulting service offers storage at a much lower cost than other AWS storage services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier’s data retrieval times can take several hours. However, Amazon Glacier does  provide customers with options for data security, including encryption and access controls.

These Glacier storage devices are specially designed for data archiving and long-term storage. AWS Glacier ensures data longevity and allows flexible retrieval and high performance of stored data when accessed. All S3 Glacier storage comes with unlimited scalability options and storage sizes that can be chosen based on your needs. Glacier also guarantees a 99 percent data durability. 

Database Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a range of database services as part of the AWS consultant service to help customers manage their data. Along with their computing and storage services, AWS Cloud Database servers are a class apart when it comes to efficiency and speed. These services include Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon Redshift.

• Amazon RDS is a fully managed database service that allows for a hassle-free setup, deployment, and maintenance of relational databases in the cloud. RDS is easy to operate and has room for scalability and changing needs of the business. It supports popular database engines like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server, and allows you to create a database with just a few clicks.
• Amazon DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service that is aimed for apps that require very low latency and demand consistency of the highest scale. It offers automatic scaling to support large amounts of data and high levels of concurrency, making it a good choice for applications that need to process large amounts of data.
• Amazon ElastiCache is a managed in-memory data store and cache service that can be used to improve the performance of web applications. It supports popular in-memory caching engines like Memcached and Redis, and allows you to easily set up, operate, and scale a cache in the cloud.
• Amazon Redshift is a data warehousing service dedicated to effective analysis and management of databases and business intelligence tools like SQL. It is designed for high-performance analytics and can handle complex queries on large datasets.

Security Protocols

Amazon provides a number of security protocols on its AWS products and services to help customers protect their data and applications in the cloud. These protocols include Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS), Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Identity and Access Management (IAM), and AWS Key Management Service (KMS). 

AWS security systems are designed to help keep your data safe while maintaining a secure and high-performing cloud infrastructure that is resilient to breaches and attacks with high efficiency. Maintained by a team of world-class security experts, AWS Cloud services and products are monitored infrastructures that are built and maintained with data privacy in mind. AWS consultants make sure that this broad selection of cutting-edge security services can help businesses simplify security issues by automating most security tasks.These security services and solutions are targeted at providing benefits that are important to help businesses store data and deploy their applications and programs on the cloud with an optimal security posture. 

Here are some key security features and protocols that AWS employs, making it arguably the best cloud consulting service in the world, as of 2024:

• Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that provides secure communications over the internet. AWS uses SSL/TLS to encrypt data in transit, helping to protect it from unauthorized access. 
• Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) allows customers to create a virtual network in the cloud, where they can launch AWS resources in a logically isolated way. This provides a high level of control over the network configuration and helps to protect the resources from unauthorized access.
•  Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a web service that helps customers securely control access to AWS resources. It allows customers to create and manage users and groups, as well as apply policies that determine which users have access to which resources.
• AWS Key Management Service (KMS) is a managed service that makes it easy for customers to create and control the encryption keys used to encrypt their data. KMS allows customers to generate, import, and rotate their own keys, providing an additional layer of security for their data.

Ready to Get Started?

As we have already mentioned, we at SumatoSoft have utilized AWS for 12 years. We have over 250 successful projects in various industries like eCommerce software, Elearning development, Finance, Real Estate, Logistics software, Travel, and more. A lot of them are built on top of AWS. We provide both custom software development and AWS consulting services, so feel free to reach out to us with the contact form for whatever needs you have. 

The system has produced a significant competitive advantage in the industry thanks to SumatoSoft’s well-thought opinions.

They shouldered the burden of constantly updating a project management tool with a high level of detail and were committed to producing the best possible solution.

Alexander McCaig

Co-Founder & CEO, Tartle

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We are absolutely convinced that cooperation between companies is only successful when based on effective teamwork (and Captain Obvious is on our side!). But the teams may vary on the degree of their cohesion.

With SumatoSoft LLC, we feel like a bobsled team — together in the same cockpit, aimed at the same targets. And this feeling is off the chart.

We are sure that by aligning our efforts we will set new records and grab new medals.

Maria Duyunova

Director, Simplimagine LLC

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Afterwards

After reading this article, you should now have a better understanding of how cloud computing works and how Amazon’s AWS enhances the operation of a business by allowing remote storage and processing of data and applications. To get started with AWS, you will first need to create an AWS account. This can be done by visiting the AWS website and clicking on the Create an AWS Account button.

It should also be clear how various tools are used in the AWS ecosystem to create a perfect blend of computing, storage, and networking solutions, paired with Amazon’s unparalleled security features. To use these services, you will need to sign in to the AWS Management Console and navigate to the service you want to use. From there, you can follow the instructions provided to create and manage your resources. It’s always a good idea to discuss your business goals with an AWS consultant to formulate effective plans to make your shift to the cloud.