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Chief Technology Architect - Agile/Devops Evangelist at Sandz Solutions
Real User
Error-free experience that is really well-tested
Pros and Cons
  • "The experience with Amazon AWS is error-free. That was also, of course, something that I really appreciate. That means it's really well-tested and, as published or as declared."
  • "I'm just bugged by the charges that I'm not really able to manage."

What is most valuable?

The experience with Amazon AWS is error-free. That was also, of course, something that I really appreciate. That means it's really well-tested and, as published or as declared. So it works as-is. I think the interfaces are really quite usable and something that I think is user friendly.

What needs improvement?

I'm just bugged by the charges that I'm not really able to manage. If there is so much little stuff, that I enabled from time to time, then I get lost. And then I tend to forget about that. It would be better if there was a corresponding notification as well. I would like to see a notification indicating you have not used this instance. You might want to turn it off so as not to incur the cost or something like that. But because most of my usage is charged to my credit card. It's disappointing and frustrating at times. If they could provide some kind of entry point. Something similar to WordPress where small businesses could have an easy way to come up with a site that could behosted immediately.

For how long have I used the solution?

My access to Amazon AWS is not so deep. I just set up VPCs and clusters or running an instance

How are customer service and support?

I would say I'm quite satisfied. They're very pleasant to talk to and very helpful.

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February 2025
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Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I would say that the Microsoft Azure interface is a lot slicker. But the last time I use it was around 2018. So comparing the interfaces in the dashboard views I think the Azure has the edge.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was a little bit challenging because understandably it also tends to protect the user in terms of the security, both the user and the system. So if I understand and appreciate that level of complexity in setting how to access it, setting up the identities, and then once you get through it, I think the interfaces are really quite usable and something that I think is user friendly.

What other advice do I have?

I would certainly recommend Amazon AWS. It's very useful because you can easily try out your compute requirements, whatever storage or whatever other services that you may want. I would rate Amazon AWS at an eight on a scale 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?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
it_user660045 - PeerSpot reviewer
Google Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
MSP
We use this tool to adopt a cloud strategy.
Pros and Cons
  • "Elasticity has always been AWS's mandate. The flexibility of their platform from a systems perspective lives up to its claims."
  • "The networking models used in AWS, while functional, do have room for improvement. This is especially the fact, considering that they are built/presented from a systems perspective."

How has it helped my organization?

I have been providing consulting services around the cloud solution for the past four to five years, during which AWS was the market leader and the de facto cloud service. AWS definitely helped me to help my customers adopt a cloud strategy smoothly and in a timely manner.

What is most valuable?

Elasticity has always been AWS's mandate. The flexibility of their platform from a systems perspective lives up to its claims.

What needs improvement?

  • I would have hoped that their networking model was a little more network oriented and flexible, as is their systems model.
  • The networking models used in AWS, while functional, do have room for improvement. This is especially the fact, considering that they are built/presented from a systems perspective.
  • More granular control of networking, as well as a richer set of networking features, could really go a long way in building globally scalable infrastructures.
  • The Identity and Access Management (IAM) authentication model could use some work as well. The fact that it isn't very straightforward/streamlined to authenticate applications that are not running on AWS infrastructure can complicate things when trying to use different (non-AWS) environments for specific activities. A simple and common example of this is working in a development environment, and having code that relies on interacting with AWS services. Being forced to store sensitive key information in your codebase isn't a very secure manner of operations.
  • Given the recent surge of adoption and interest in containers and container orchestration, Amazon ECS is seen as a proprietary Amazon service. This makes it impossible to use Amazon ECS on other platforms, whether for development purposes, or for rolling out multi-cloud types of deployments. If you use an alternative, such as Kubernetes, this can easily be configured and ported to any environment, as it is an open-source project.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any issues with stability on AWS. However, it is worth noting that they did have uptime issues in the past. While there weren't many issues, they still did happen.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The only issue that I faced with scalability was due to the soft limitations that AWS applies on the allowed number of resources, e.g., the number of VPCs per account, the number of EIPs per VPC, etc.

How are customer service and technical support?

I do not have much experience working with AWS's technical support. However, their forums are vast and pretty full of useful information.

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

AWS was sort of the first of its kind, so I did not use a different solution previously. However, today I find myself a lot more invested in the Google Cloud Platform, as oppose to AWS.

How was the initial setup?

It was relatively straightforward to install. I have read reviews of others facing issues with getting their accounts approved. However, I never faced such issues.

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

Be careful with your consumption, especially when you are testing things. Costs can creep up on you relatively fast, without even noticing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

As mentioned earlier, since AWS was the first of its kind, I didn't really have many other options at the time. I remember one of the other players at the time was Rackspace, but they were considerably more expensive than AWS.

What other advice do I have?

Picking a cloud platform is not a process that should be taken for granted. The leading cloud service providers today each have their pros and cons. It's best that you assess your options, and start with the cloud platform that best suits your needs. After that, your next step would be to start considering a multi-cloud strategy.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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CTO at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
The technical support was a 7 on a scale of 1-10, but dynamic usage and flexibility.

What is most valuable?

Dynamic usage and flexibility in choosing configurations. Also the fact that Amazon’s security team is much larger than anything I could ever assemble gives me reliance that this run time environment is going to be more secure than anything I can deploy.

How has it helped my organization?

I needed to stand up a prototype server that did not conform to my corporate IT standards. By using AWS I was able to stand up my prototype in a few hours, run my demo and be done.

What needs improvement?

The connection between the billing console and the management console is not obvious so shutting down a machine was hard to find initially and resulted in excess billing.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for 5 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service: Customer service was pretty good. It was responsive but it took 2-3 iterations on the billing/Management issue before they understood the problem I ran into.Technical Support: The technical support was a 7 on a scale of 1-20

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

I have used Amazon Elastic Beanstalk and Windows Azure. My primary choice to use AWS was because the prototype server stack was specified as an AMI (Amazon Machine Image).

How was the initial setup?

If you have not used AWS, its not as straightforward as it could be to choose what stack configuration a particular AMI requires before loading it. OTOH the “Amazon Web Service Pricing Calculator” is currently the gold standard for cloud vendors.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented in-house.

What was our ROI?

Not applicable, the ROI came from the agility to quickly standup the environment I needed.

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

Approximately $200/mo.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have used Azure, and Horuko.

What other advice do I have?

Use the AWS pricing calculator to understand how the services fit together.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
MADHAV CHABLANI - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Chief Information Officer at Tippingedge
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Good performance, but it can be costly, and the setup could be simplified
Pros and Cons
  • "In general, Amazon's performance is good."
  • "When I try to enter the multi-cloud, they provide very poor support. Support is a concern with Amazon."

What is our primary use case?

We have applications that are running on the PaaS platforms.

In the healthcare environment, we use Amazon AWS to run healthcare and hospitalization applications.

The end-user is largely unaware of how the backend works, so some of the services are provided by Amazon. So, where we are, some of the applications have been running since the beginning, and we have been using them. And some of the services are required by the packages we are running, so they use Amazon PaaS as a service.

What is most valuable?

In general, Amazon's performance is good.

What needs improvement?

When I try to enter the multi-cloud, they provide very poor support. Support is a concern with Amazon.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for a few years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is a stable solution, it is far more stable than some others.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is scalable, depending on the platforms and services that are used.

In our company, we have 50,000 employees who use this solution.

We intend to increase our users based on how the new releases go, and if the economics work out better than Google and Microsoft, we will definitely look to Amazon because Amazon can be extremely competitive at times.

How are customer service and support?

It should be faster. Unlike Google's and Microsoft's support, Amazon's support should be faster.

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

We have used other PaaS clouds previously.

The hospitals were available on Amazon. We have certain hospitals that were part of the group when it first started, but there are a lot of hospitals that are in the process of being acquired. Once the setup is acquired, it is extremely difficult and time-consuming for them to bring it through one enterprise architecture. Now, it is not necessary to have services from only one cloud service provider; instead, we can have services from multiple providers, and we are working to integrate the multi-cloud.

How was the initial setup?

Essentially, you must design and optimize the architecture. It is not the most straightforward process to install. You must first design your architecture and then optimize it in relation to the services.

Earlier I used to work there, and we had a real skill shortage because we needed people who could understand and work in the cloud. When we developed centers of excellence and core competencies, people were required to work across multiple platforms, which is a challenge that we are currently working on. As a result, the real challenge now is for a team to have a multi-cloud. Now, if we can develop this talent organically, that will be fantastic. We'll spread out the support team we require. Another initiative that is being worked on is automation, automating scripts, and new technologies, which are assisting us greatly with serverless and cloud computing.

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

It can get quite pricey at times. Because of the patterns we're attempting to use, it becomes very expensive. Where we can save money by using Google components or Microsoft components, we can go much cheaper.

You must pay a licensing fee, which is based on the usage.

Essentially, it is determined by how we use the services. There are sometimes are a soft service, sometimes we pay yearly, and sometimes we pay as we use it.

What other advice do I have?

Yes, I would recommend this solution. If we compare the three, I would rank Google first, Microsoft second, Amazon third, and the rest would follow.

I would rate Amazon AWS a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1751898 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Account Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Makes it easy to scale and spin up resources and is pretty dependable
Pros and Cons
  • "It is easy to spin up resources."
  • "There is no control of downtime."

What is our primary use case?

We are mostly using it for DevOps. 

We are using its latest version. They do auto-updates and update it at their own will.

What is most valuable?

It is easy to spin up resources.

What needs improvement?

There is no control of downtime.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have probably been using this solution for eight months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Over the past couple of days, we've had some outages. It seems they had some network issues, but overall, it has been pretty dependable and stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is easy to scale. We probably have about 50 users who use this solution.

How are customer service and support?

They're decent. Sometimes, they take a while to get back to you. It depends on the severity.

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

We were using another solution. We switched to it because of its ease of use, ease of deployment, and cost.

How was the initial setup?

Its setup is of medium complexity. It depends on what you're setting up. Some of the things are easy, and some of the things are difficult. For example, setting up infrastructure as code with Terraform is difficult.

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

It is comparable if you add in the price structure to an on-prem solution.

What other advice do I have?

On the DevOps side, make sure you know what you're doing for security before you implement it. Make sure it is secure.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Manager of DevOps at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
It's easy to configure and has high availability
Pros and Cons
  • "AWS is easier to implement than other solutions, and it's more reliable."
  • "Amazon support could be better."

What is our primary use case?

AWS is deployed into a public cloud. We have five lines and everything is autotomized. We are using several AWS solutions, including Containers, Pierre, Stargate, and Lambda. We have several projects in production, but I can't disclose more details because it's confidential. 

What is most valuable?

AWS is easier to implement than other solutions, and it's more reliable. 

What needs improvement?

It would be helpful for us if we could easily integrate Oracle RDS with AWS. That would work well with the solutions we have in place.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

AWS is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We can quickly add resources with AWS when necessary. Our company currently has 200 users working with AWS.

How are customer service and support?

Amazon support could be better.

How was the initial setup?

Deploying AWS is easy. The amount of time it takes depends on the application. I couldn't give a precise estimate of the number of minutes. We have four engineers to manage and maintain the solution.

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

We pay about $20,000 per month, and the license is all-inclusive. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are compared AWS with Azure and IBM Cloud, but in the end, we decided to work with AWS.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Amazon AWS 10 out of 10. For me, it's perfect. AWS is effortless to configure and has high availability. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Software Architect at AIOPS group
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Very stable and scalable, but could use more integration
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the most valuable things about it, besides the stability, is that you can forget about infrastructure because you're just doing it on AWS. I remember the times before AWS and other cloud solutions existed, and it was a huge pain to get real hardware, put it inside, configure everything, report everything, and do a scale. It was very, very difficult compared to how it is now. Not even just AWS, but what all these cloud providers are doing, I would say, is a huge advancement in technology."
  • "AWS could be improved with more integration, but I can see that they're developing these features and working very hard on their platform."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case of AWS, for most projects, is for hosting on AWS and developing locally, as well as testing some AWS environments. We are mostly using this platform from a developer point of view. AWS is our cloud platform by choice. 

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable things about it, besides the stability, is that you can forget about infrastructure because you're just doing it on AWS. I remember the times before AWS and other cloud solutions existed, and it was a huge pain to get real hardware, put it inside, configure everything, report everything, and do a scale. It was very, very difficult compared to how it is now. Not even just AWS, but what all these cloud providers are doing, I would say, is a huge advancement in technology. 

What needs improvement?

AWS could be improved with more integration, but I can see that they're developing these features and working very hard on their platform. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with AWS for a few years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

One of the major points for AWS is the scalability that comes with it. You can monitor it really well, and you can even adjust down, or sometimes up. What this technology allows is very nice. 

AWS is predominantly used in most of the projects that we have. In my organization, there are thousands of users who are using AWS. 

How are customer service and support?

I have never personally contacted tech support. 

How was the initial setup?

There isn't really an installation for AWS, but you will need certain certificates to download the interface. I generated some certificates, put them on my machine, and then used them to connect to AWS services. 

It depends on the project, but there is usually only one guy needed for deployment. For bigger, more complex platforms, you may need two or three guys to deploy AWS. 

What about the implementation team?

I implemented AWS myself. 

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

You pay for a license, and that's how you get your own account. These are usually not individual licenses, but rather for a group of people. I think these licenses come at some volume, but I don't know many details about the licensing. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate AWS a five out of ten, but it's mainly because I don't feel very experienced in AWS. I have gone to the console many times and seen many features that I have never used. I'm sure I can learn quickly, though, because there is a lot of information shared on the internet about how to use it—there are a lot of resources that you can use to learn, and there are a lot of features available on AWS. They're working very hard on their platform, and I can only see their usage growing in the future. 

I would certainly recommend AWS to others. 

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
reviewer1392516 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Enterprise Infrastructure at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Feature-rich, mature, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is quite helpful."
  • "We would appreciate it if the product was cheaper."

What is our primary use case?

We use mainly use the product for the infrastructure, the service components, and the storage. 

What is most valuable?

The maturity that the solution offers is its most valuable aspect. It was one of the first solutions to market and has a long track record. It's very mature in terms of product delivery. 

It is very stable.

The scalability is great.

In terms of features, it's very feature-rich and it's got a good ecosystem from third-party vendors as well in terms of those that partner up with them for offering their services on Amazon. 

The security is good. Due to the fact that it's on the cloud, you can build your own security to meet your needs. It's enriched with great security features and capabilities. You just need to know how to run them. 

Technical support is quite helpful. 

What needs improvement?

We would appreciate it if the product was cheaper. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution since 2014. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. The performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Due to the fact that it is a cloud, users really do not have an issue with scalability. It can expand to meet anyone's needs. 

We have at least 200 users at this time. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support has been very good overall. they are helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of support.

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

Before Amazon, we did not use other products, however, we now also use Azure and Google. 

How was the initial setup?

As a cloud service, there really isn't an installation process that's required. 

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

We use their subscription model.

The solution could always be cheaper. 

We have a monthly recurring cost based on usage.

What other advice do I have?

As a cloud service, we are always on the latest version of the product.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten based on the feedback I've gotten from my team.

I'd recommend this service for particular use cases. However, it is important that users understand how it works. For example, it's not like you buy a server and running in a data center.

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
Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: February 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.