Head of Implementation and Security at a financial services firm with 1-10 employees
Real User
It makes deployment and management of infrastructure easier
Pros and Cons
  • "AWS's containerization is the most useful feature for us."
  • "I'd like to see AWS implement consolidated billing for businesses operating under one group. We want to consolidate the functionalities but keep the billing separate. That is a challenge we've faced, and I feel it's something they can improve on. For example, maybe you have three businesses that are operating under one group, and you want each entity to have a separate bill for the respective workload that they're using."

What is our primary use case?

AWS makes deployment and management of infrastructure easier. We are using so many features, including Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk, Elastic Container Service, EC2 instances, and Landing Zone. We rely heavily on AWS, and we're constantly taking advantage of new features as they come out to see how they can add value to the business. 

What is most valuable?

AWS's containerization is the most useful feature for us. 

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see AWS implement consolidated billing for businesses operating under one group. We want to consolidate the functionalities but keep the billing separate. That is a challenge we've faced, and I feel it's something they can improve on. For example, maybe you have three businesses that are operating under one group, and you want each entity to have a separate bill for the respective workload that they're using. But in terms of technical expertise, you want to consolidate the technical support and function of the three accounts. That's an area where AWS is struggling.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Amazon AWS for about four or five years.

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April 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

AWS is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

AWS is scalable. We're serving close to 7,000 or 8,000 end-users with it.

How are customer service and support?

AWS support is good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

AWS is pay as you go.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We reviewed the main three cloud providers: GCP, Azure, and AWS.

What other advice do I have?

I rate AWS 9.5 out of 10. I would recommend it. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Founder CEO at PROZM Knowledge Services Pvt Ltd
Real User
Has good compute features and Relational Database services
Pros and Cons
  • "The features that I have found most valuable are their compute and their Relational Database Service."
  • "The features that should be improved are that there should be better clarity on their invoicing. There are so many things they charge for - high line items in the invoice. I think there should be more clarity and more ease of use with their billing. I'd like to see better ease of use of with the billing console and a clear dashboard to understand the usage."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to host our e-learning platform.

AWS is a platform, wherein they give you a virtual instance of a server. So there is no version per se. They just give you a virtual server. The other software we use is free. We use it for conducting our exams and everything. We use a free, open source software, which is not a commercial software.

How has it helped my organization?

Remember, this is a plain vanilla platform. So we don't have to do any actual investment in servers and other things. That is the general advantage of cloud that everybody gets. You don't have to pay a lot of money. And at any point, if you feel you don't want to use it, you stop. It is as simple as that.

What is most valuable?

The features that I have found most valuable are their compute and their Relational Database Service.

What needs improvement?

The features that should be improved are that there should be better clarity on their invoicing. There are so many things they charge for - high line items in the invoice. I think there should be more clarity and more ease of use with their billing.

I'd like to see better ease of use with the billing console and a clear dashboard to understand the usage.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for almost three years. We are continually using it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is very, very stable.

No maintenance is required.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is unlimited. From one to 10, it is 10.

We use it, but our training participants access it. A lot of people access it. In a year, at different points in time, 200 people might be using it.

I don't think we will be expanding usage because we purchased a little more than what we needed. We don't need to spend any money now. We only pay our monthly charges.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. If you raise a ticket, they're very good. Even with billing, if you have some issues they take care of it. If you are overbilled or you're not using it and then you turn one thing by mistake, and all of a sudden the bill has increased - they'll take care of it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we were using general hosting, they even call it shared hosting. But it was not scalable and it was not fast.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is all easy. It's very easy.

Our deployment took just a few clicks. You are talking seconds.

What about the implementation team?

I had our technical team do it. But you need a technical person. It's not that anybody can do it or a person like me can do it. You need to have a technical person doing it.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return of investment with Amazon AWS.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are just a customer. We just pay monthly for the subscription cost. I mean, hardly $50. We are a very small company. 

What other advice do I have?

My advice to anyone considering Amazon AWS is that they should plan properly for their spending and they should have good control over their technology team. Otherwise, if the technology team doesn't know enough and they keep on creating more services, you'll be surprised with the invoice. Technology and finance should work very, very closely in the cloud.

On a scale of one to 10, I give Amazon AWS a 10. It's a really good product.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
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Tristan Bergh - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Scientist at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Scales well, works fast, and offers great price forecasting
Pros and Cons
  • "The price forecasting and billing dashboard by service, with billing budgets and alerts, have helped us shut down resources that were accruing costs that we no longer needed, saving us money."
  • "I don't have complaints. Previously, we asked for more end-to-end workshops, examples, and tutorials and these have been added and improved."

What is our primary use case?

My primary use case is to set up an end-to-end application to deliver a business case involving data ingestion, processing, transformation, and checking, followed by outputs to other functions and processes in AWS and also to external systems.

We are using Step Functions as a core automation tool and it offers great power through its simplicity. It is quite easy to use, although there is a learning curve when using the Step Function scripts. Once mastered, after a week or so, the flows can be built quickly and effectively, allowing us to link a custom business process to multiple other AWS service automatically. 

That done, most business cases can be delivered easily and quickly, all in a serverless and cost-effective way. 

How has it helped my organization?

AWS has improved my organization by:

- saving us time, cost, and difficulty by allowing us to use serverless services

- enabling us to assemble complex applications with the minimum of boilerplate and plumbing

- allowing us to pay-as-we-go, so we can rapidly prototype, test, and then deploy to a production application setup

We can run advanced demos with our own data very quickly, showing potential clients the value of our services when we assemble apps for them.

We can show customers clear cost benefits and clearly effective solutions when assembling AWS services together. 

What is most valuable?

The security has great IAM, roles, and carefully partitioned permissions that allow us to fine-tune control across our applications. External intrusion attempts will never get past application boundaries, which increases trust.

The composition of apps has everything wrapped according to function and applications. We can assemble services as we go. This speeds delivery times by orders of magnitude.

The price forecasting and billing dashboard by service, with billing budgets and alerts, have helped us shut down resources that were accruing costs that we no longer needed, saving us money.

What needs improvement?

The service's power lies in its simplicity. It is great in that respect. 

The UI is constantly being improved and the billing dashboard has been improved.

Previously, we asked for more end-to-end workshops, examples, and tutorials and these have been added and improved. 

Recently, AWS has been adding improvements across services, documentation, tutorials and we have now got workshops with real-world scenarios which are tremendously useful It makes me a very happy user. 

AWS and the cloud is a space for constant learning and AWS has increased their output in that respect. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using AWS since 2014.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. The only errors I encountered were my own. Some services took a few minutes to refresh and propagate across my environments, and once these had propagated, the solutions were rock solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is excellent. At no point have I hit scalability limits with AWS services and features. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer service and tech support were excellent a few years ago when I needed them.

My general process is to explore and check options and run from a tutorial or AWS workshop. If this doesn't get me results, I then do a web search, and I generally find either further AWS docs or a specific example I can use to solve my issue. Within the last few years, my colleagues and I have been able to deliver as required. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did previously use a different solution when building AWS Lambda cloud functions. I could compare them directly with Azure Functions and Google Cloud and have found that the AWS Lambda solution is simpler, clearer, deploys quicker, and is generally much more simple and effective to use.

In terms of documentation, AWS is the clear leader. Their end-to-end examples and workshops are much more effective.

AWS services in many cases are deployed to AWS after being validated in Amazon.com's operations. This is evident in the ease-of-use and simplicity of many of the service features, and also in the excellent options offered for more complex services like AWS Forecast, where, for example, a checkbox and drop-down allows the user to add holidays for the country they work in when doing forecasts.

AWS has a stronger focus on business solutions than either GCP or Azure, and in many of the solutions, I have used. This is why in many cases I have switched from using other clouds, to AWS. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup in AWS is a whole service in and of itself. To set up AWS applications, AWS offers a full service, CloudFormation, with some added features that allow us to automate the deployment of the full solution stack.

This makes setup complex, in that one must modify the CloudFormation template one requires and validate it. An external resource was required to check the templates. 

Once this is done, the full solution stacks are automatically deployed. 

What about the implementation team?

I handled the initial setup in-house and by myself.

What was our ROI?

A recently deployed Step Function automation fulfilled all the needs of a workflow automation engine while remaining below the free operation per month, so we were able to deliver a fully automated application approval process without paying for any workflow automation engine license fees or any server hardware or infrastructure costs.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would advise others to work from an architecture overview. 

Be aware of the very powerful schema-less data services in the cloud. They can help remove the need for data warehouses - e.g. multi-TB datasets - can be read, joined, queried and made to output daily reports within minutes, on temporary clusters, and that cost less than USD1000 per month. This is compared to the hundreds of thousands of USD for data warehouse licensing costs, plus the schema design time and ongoing DevOps they require.

Moving to serverless operations in the cloud frees up your people to deliver business services rather than spend days and days on administering data centers and the associated concerns that come with them.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I also looked at Azure and it was deemed less reliable than AWS as AWS has not had as many outages and uptime concerns as Azure has had of late. Azure Function Apps, Data Factory, Managed SQL.

Besides Azure, I looked at GCP and VMs, Cloud Functions, Speech-to-Text transcription, BigTable, and BigQuery.

What other advice do I have?

Empower your in-house people to start building and running their workloads in AWS. 

Let them learn as they go. There are multiple online courses for a few dollars that can assist with specific, individual AWS services, as well as running through the AWS workshops. 

Incentivize AWS certifications. Involve your tech people with business solution prototyping. 

Tag your resources, name them well, and set budget thresholds. Assign people to tune the resources being used. Incentivize communications and publish the AWS services and features being used to deliver your business capabilities.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager, Engineering at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Robust, scalable, user-friendly, and support included when deployed
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the features offered is scalability on demand."
  • "It works very well with open-source solutions like Java, but not with .NET technologies."

What is our primary use case?

We host the service for customer products. Those services are utilized by different product lines, which can be used on AWS.

What is most valuable?

One of the features offered is scalability on demand.

It's user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

There are some areas that are not great. For example, with some Microsoft technologies such as .NET, you will have a difficult time deploying it on AWS. It works very well with open-source solutions like Java, but not with .NET technologies.

I would like to see more alerts added to the system. Preemptive alerts would be very good. It is something that happens and you have to do a lot of configuration at that time, which can be complex.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable and a pretty robust solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable solution that features scalability on demand, which is working perfectly fine.

We change the core on demand. We can increase the capacity on demand.

We have 10,000 users in our organization who are using this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have dedicated support. Once we have deployed it, support comes as part of the service because it is incorporated with the solution.

We get all of the support that we need.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was definitely complex, but not because of AWS. It is complex because we need to upgrade to be compatible with AWS, which is related to the product and not AWS. The setup of AWS is straightforward.

We deployed it in a cluster way. Initially, it took a week to set everything up.

The first time it took longer, then became straightforward. It only takes a couple of hours now.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing can be purchased on a yearly basis, which is an auto-renewal. We also have an on-demand on-pay purchase.

If, for example, we have provisions for other things and we have a three-peak season then we add more core, more hardware for the on-premises machines. During those periods it is on-demand but the rest of the time it is licensed with a yearly subscription.

The pricing is reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution but there are some areas that need improvement. It doesn't integrate well with some technologies and preemptive alerts would be very helpful.

I am happy with this solution, and I would rate Amazon AWS a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Oracle Database Administrator at Refinitiv
Real User
A reasonably-priced and stable platform for transitioning our customers from on-premises to the cloud
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is that it is simple."
  • "They can launch the Oracle service in Azure, and we expect that this should be possible in Amazon AWS as well."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case of this solution is to migrate our customers into the cloud, integrating all of their applications.

In my previous organization, we moved some customers from on-premises to the cloud, and they are happy with the change.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is that it is simple. We don't use complex services for our small business customers.

What needs improvement?

When it was only Amazon AWS in the market, no one was concerned about the pricing. However, now that there are so many competitors, there is more comparison for cloud service providers. They should look into reducing the price of this solution to stay competitive. It would be a benefit.

The current trend is multi-cloud. They can launch the Oracle service in Azure, and we expect that this should be possible in Amazon AWS as well. 

I would like to see better integration between Oracle and AWS.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is stable and we have not faced any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a scalable solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have not used technical support. We provide that to our customers.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. 

Deployment is not a problem for us because we have experience. For new people, they are a bit worried about new features, until they develop a routine.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The Oracle licensing is higher than it is with Amazon AWS.

What other advice do I have?

The deployment varies, as some of our customers would like the hybrid cloud while others want a public cloud.

I have recommended this product to our customers and will continue to do so.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
SAP Architect at Deloitte
Real User
Top 10
A stable tool with auto-scaling functionality, but lacking in system configuration documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "We like the that, within the public subnet of this solution, a new instance of the tool is launched when it detects an issue, in order to prevent interruptions in performance."
  • "We would like the system documentation for configuring this solution to be improved, in order to provide better process clarity."

What is most valuable?

We like the that, within the public subnet of this solution, a new instance of the tool is launched when it detects an issue, in order to prevent interruptions in performance.

What needs improvement?

We would like the system documentation for configuring this solution to be improved, in order to provide better process clarity.

Similarly, we would like more templates to be available to download for performance-oriented architecture, so that we can re-purpose them for our environment.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with this solution for the last five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have found this to be a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution allows for easy auto-scaling.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for this solution is straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager (Engineering Department) at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easy to use, multiple payment options, and highly reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are ease of use, deployment, and short lead time. If you are using an on-premise solution, you need to wait for the hardware, and nowadays it is very difficult, the lead time becomes very long. We propose to our customers to use Amazon AWS because it is very easy, no need to wait for hardware delivery."
  • "If Amazon AWS can offer more self-paced learning tools, on their website, on CBT, it'll be easier for more people to familiarize themselves with their service. Especially when they are delivering new services from time to time. Educational tools that can help users familiarize themselves with their service. It would be great."

What is our primary use case?

The customer can deploy their application on Amazon AWS instead of taking care of their infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are ease of use, deployment, and short lead time. If you are using an on-premise solution, you need to wait for the hardware, and nowadays it is very difficult, the lead time becomes very long. We propose to our customers to use Amazon AWS because it is very easy, no need to wait for hardware delivery.

What needs improvement?

If Amazon AWS can offer more self-paced learning tools, on their website, on CBT,  it'll be easier for more people to familiarize themselves with their service. Especially when they are delivering new services from time to time. Educational tools that can help users familiarize themselves with their service. It would be great.

I know they have a Free Tier service, but they need to register their credit cards. Some of my colleagues have concerns. If the usage exceeds a certain value, they exceeded the Free Tier usage time and they will start charging your credit card. My colleagues forgot about the usage and credit card payments. They needed to pay for the additional amounts which they used on top of the Free Tier usage. If Amazon AWS could improve the free service model to be more user-friendly in a way of not using a credit card, that would be great.

For personal learning, you also need to register your credit card. You need to be careful or you will have to pay.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for approximately two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is stable. However, they have had a few outages but nothing very serious.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is quite scalable. And they have a lot of auto-scaling functions for their VMs.

How are customer service and support?

I don't have direct information of the support from Amazon AWS because sometimes we are relying on Amazon's partner, not directly contacting Amazon AWS support teams. We need to have some support plan with Amazon AWS, otherwise, they will not provide direct email or technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The length of time and difficulty of the implementation depends on the scale and the complexity of the project.

What about the implementation team?

For the implementation of Amazon AWS, having two to three engineers focusing on it would be ideal. Small to middle size companies, don't have dedicated teams or engineers for a particular service.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Amazon AWS is offering different pricing, and saving plans, it's very easy for a customer to consider the Amazon AWS service.

Amazon AWS charges based on the user usage and some software license, such as the OS are included in their monthly charge. The transparency is quite sufficient, the customer knows what they're paying for.

The usage fees are an OPEX and they are offered monthly or annually.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have evaluated Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Amazon AWS to others.

Amazon AWS are the market leaders in the public cloud service and after them, we have Microsoft Azure, and maybe Google Cloud.

I rate Amazon AWS an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Principal Consultant at High Sierra Consultants
Consultant
Good elasticity, good performance, and reasonable price
Pros and Cons
  • "Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service."
  • "One thing that Azure offers that I think is good is Migrate appliance. So, Azure has a migrate appliance that allows you to run against workloads to determine the cost, preparedness, and scalability. I haven't found a similar feature in AWS. That kind of service would be great on AWS too if you could point it to the data center."

What is our primary use case?

I am using it for enterprise warehousing. I am using it for web development, data warehousing, and also for building apps.

I am using its latest version. In terms of deployment, it is a platform as a service.

What is most valuable?

Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service.

Its elasticity is good, and I haven't come across any problems with it. So far, everything has been good.

What needs improvement?

One thing that Azure offers that I think is good is Migrate appliance. So, Azure has a migrate appliance that allows you to run against workloads to determine the cost, preparedness, and scalability. I haven't found a similar feature in AWS. That kind of service would be great on AWS too if you could point it to the data center.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for well over five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any performance issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy to scale. Its elasticity is good. If you want to scale up or down, you can. You can scale out. There is no problem at all. That's one of the features that I like about it.

We have less than 50 people who are using this solution.

How are customer service and support?

I've not used their tech support yet.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't use a different solution previously. They're the first.

How was the initial setup?

You need to know what you're doing. I know they're trying to make it easy. Some things are easy. Some things you have to know what you're doing.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It seems to be reasonable. It's the first one that I've used as a cloud platform, so they've set the benchmark for me, and now, I'm comparing everything else to them.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to just plan out what they are looking for in terms of use cases. 

I would rate Amazon AWS an eight out of 10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.