Item: Amazon Web Services
Rating: 9
Author: Zakarieya Abderoef

Overall Satisfaction with Amazon Web Services

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Amazon Web Services offers a comprehensive range of cloud services, which we can utilise at a cost-effective price as well as offering the flexibility and scalability to fast-track deployment of server and storage infrastructure for our clients. We are also able to set up test / Dev environments for testing applications quickly as well as setting up secure cloud disaster recovery (DR) sites with minimal costs.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Innovation. Since AWS is a world leader, we are able to benefit from running on the latest technologies being deployed using best practices and industry standards that typically comes standard from these leading cloud service providers.
Scalability. There is basically no limitation in expanding system resources when using AWS. The advantage of this is that we can increase resources for business systems and projects at a click of a button.

Cons

Implementation. Migrating to AWS is somewhat complex and adequate training is required. However, this can be mitigated using an accredited AWS provider.
Support Costs. AWS has various support options which includes Developer, Business and Enterprise support. Depending on the business requirement, the support costs can increase significantly since the basic support option may not meet the requirement of certain businesses.

Return on Investment

Infrastructure cost saving in short term. No huge capital outlay.
Secured platform. Peace of mind knowing data is secured.

Alternatives Considered

Besides Amazon Web Services, there is also Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, etc. They all provide similar services that can be compared by running a free trial or demo. They may be running different technologies in the backend but their functionality is similar and costs may be slightly different. My preference for AWS is that I trust the brand, and they have been a leader in the cloud platform.

Support Rating

I give this rating because Amazon Web Services has several options, and the basic support option might not have met the requirement for all business workloads. While some workloads required basic support, others required a more demanding service, which increases support costs.

Key Insights

Do you think Amazon Web Services delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Amazon Web Services's feature set?

Yes

Did Amazon Web Services live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Amazon Web Services go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Amazon Web Services again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Fortinet FortiGate, Huawei OceanStor, Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller

Likelihood to Recommend

Amazon Web Services is well suited for startup organisations that can benefit from immediate deployment of the virtual infrastructure and applications on a cloud platform. It's also cost-effective since you do not have to lay out a huge capital investment especially for small start-up businesses. AWS is also useful for organisations who need to rapidly deploy infrastructure to test applications and for those short-term projects that do not require permanent infrastructure. AWS can also be cost effective for running your disaster recovery environment on Cloud platform.

Amazon Web Services Feature Ratings

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

My AWS experience