As the future continues to look uncertain, having a reliable online infrastructure for your business is more important than ever. Accessibility and ease of use are musts in today’s ever-changing online landscape. When done successfully, cloud migrations are one of the easiest and most affordable ways to ensure the safety of your valuable data. While there is a wide range of companies eager to assist in your online endeavors, Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) is a strong choice for cloud hosting.
With over 200 fully realized services and the largest customer base on the planet, AWS offers a mature platform to support your critical workloads in the cloud. Here are six reasons why your organization should migrate to AWS.
1. AWS Services are Affordable
AWS aims to be as accessible as possible with its pay-as-you-go price model. AWS only requires you to pay for the resources you use. This model is flexible and makes way for easy tweaking to fit the shifting needs of your business. Combined with the platforms over 200 different cloud services, this allows you to pick and choose the right tools to fit those needs without paying for the ones you don’t use. This reduces the risk of new deployments by eliminating large upfront investments in equipment and installation which accompanies new hardware on-premises.
In addition to the pay-as-you-go model, AWS also offers several strategies to realize savings. These include start/stop strategies and instance reservations. VM start/stop allows for savings on computing charges when VMs are stopped. For example, if an instance runs only 8 hours per day and is stopped the other 16 hours each day, you would only be charged compute costs for the 8 hours the VM is running.
Instance reservations allow for substantial savings in exchange for long-term commitments. For example, AWS states that 1- and 3-year VM reservations yield an average of 40% and 60% savings respectively relative to on-demand costs. AWS Savings Plans evolve on this model by establishing spend reservations rather than instance-specific reservations, allowing additional flexibility when purchasing EC2, Fargate, and Lambda and compute capacity.
AWS even features a robust Free Tier. Once an account is created, the user will immediately have access to an allotted free tier spend on 60 AWS services, completely free. This is a perfect way to try out the platform while minimizing risk and costly up-front investments.
2. AWS Offers a Wide-Range of Services
Offering the widest range of services is one of the greatest strengths of AWS. No other cloud provider offers the same quantity of services. AWS is packed to the brim with infrastructure tools like databases, storage, and compute technologies. It also offers application integration, developer tools, and media services, to name a few of its flagship products. AWS doesn’t just offer a wide range of services; it offers best-in-class versions of those services. AWS database offerings are a prime example. The platform offers a wide variety of databases designed for a plethora of applications, allowing you to choose the right tool for the job.
3. Advanced Security
AWS employs top-of-the-line, hands-on security measures to ensure that your data is always protected. AWS wants you to have the control you need to keep your information safe. This is achieved by continuous data monitoring and identity/access controls at your fingertips. In short, you can choose who sees your data and when they see it.
Another benefit of AWS is the delegation of responsibility to the hosting provider. Though the control of traditional key security features such as IAM, security monitoring, and network security is in your hands, solving every solution doesn’t have to be. AWS features various automated security measures designed to free up your team and provide peace of mind, without any added hassle or time investment. AWS also partners with top security technology and consulting services to prioritize and promote the security of its platform.This support network provides top protection every step of the way. Even with its already unrivaled security infrastructure, Amazon conducts routine evaluations checking for any cracks or imperfections in their security structure – and delegates many security responsibilities at the hosting layer to AWS so that your team can focus on protecting your hosted workloads.
4. AWS Services Provide Flexibility
Another benefit of AWS is its flexible design, making collaboration with other applications and programs a breeze. The platform allows you to choose your own operating system, programming language, and even database, making for a heightened level of customization. AWS offers toolsets to simplify data migration while keeping the door open for new improvements or application transitions. In short, AWS holds true to its hands-on approach, allowing for freedom and customization.
5. Customer Satisfaction
As of 2020, an astounding 76 percent of companies have utilized at least one AWS service. With over a million active users in 190 countries, migrating to AWS would allow you to leverage a world-class hosting platform. Businesses of all shapes and sizes trust AWS as their cloud platform of choice, including the world’s largest entertainment companies and government organizations.
Examples include:
6. Speed and Performance
Today’s IT landscape is a rapidly changing world of adaptation and innovation. As new tools and technologies are released, making them available to your teams becomes a top priority. Whereas on-premises resources can take weeks to implement due to long hardware procurement processes, AWS allows you to deploy new IT solutions in minutes. This can free up your team to perform more value-add activities such as the implementation of key IT initiatives and accelerate the time to innovate and achieve your IT organization’s goals.
AWS also unlocks several tools which enhance performance and availability. Whether it’s tools like Auto Scaling and Load Balancing, or access to high availability data storage systems which can meet your organization’s storage requirements, AWS offers the tools your team needs to stay on top.
Why Choose AWS Services for Your Business?
Built on the sturdy foundation of one of the largest companies in the world, AWS isn’t going anywhere. AWS is packed with industry-leading services and a reach spanning the globe. Even still, AWS is not without its shortcomings. AWS offers a wide range of services, many of which may not be needed by your organization. This can make learning the platform daunting. This feature list is also regularly updated and expanded, meaning that it requires continual effort on the latest features in AWS. Each year cloud computing continues to solidify itself as a must for businesses of all sizes. Now is the perfect time to jump in.
