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reviewer1465254 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Detailed dashboard, easy to follow documentation, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution offers a very detailed dashboard that has some metrics, such as performance and budget."
  • "In a future release, I would like to see more support for AI because it is the future."

What is our primary use case?

I am using the solution to create my own virtual servers in the cloud. We use one of the servers to deploy the database for NoSQL database on MongoDB. MongoDB allows all types of databases. 

Here is a more detailed explanation. I needed to deploy a backup API that was not in the project I needed it for. To back up the API is essentially treating data from the MongoDB database. Initially, we implemented it locally and tested all the endpoints, and then we deployed it to the AWS services. We needed this to be online and to communicate with the front end, which is an angular app that says you receive the data from another database which is another NoSQL.

What is most valuable?

This solution offers a very detailed dashboard that has some metrics, such as performance and budget. You can find all the documentation on how to do almost anything. It supports multiple services where you can use Linux. Depending on your use case, you can also manage the allocations, for example, your hard drive and memory.

Additionally, the solution is user-friendly, has intuitive dashboards, and plenty of graphs and charts available.

What needs improvement?

We had some problems with bandwidth because of high usage. There were so many queries going to the API and since we were on a budget, we did not provide the needed requirements for our software. At those times the performance was really slow, I needed to log in using a remote session to check whether there is a problem and if there was I had to restart the server. If you have the required budget and you know how to customize it, I think it would be working fine.

In a future release, I would like to see more support for AI because it is the future. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for the past year.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is really reliable even when we were using it as a demo to showcase to clients.

The cloud-based environment was secure for everything I used it for. It does not allow you to just log in for the remote sessions. You need to configure it to have a computer log into your accounts properly for user management.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable, whenever you want to scale up the solution and improve it, they really offer you that opportunity. For example, increase the hardware and resources.

How are customer service and support?

The customer support is exceptional. I was having some problems with deploying the server and had to contact support. I began chatting with the chatbot and when it did not help me I was transferred to one of their support attendants. Once the ticket is submitted, they send you another email, in three days to check whether the problem was resolved or not. They are really helpful.

Additionally, at one of the AI summits, Amazon had a room that was filled with many technical professionals. They all had different technical backgrounds willing to give support to those who asked questions. It was really helpful.

How was the initial setup?

The installation for me was straightforward since I have some technical background. However, I did still need to read some documentation. The installation documentation is good and informative. Those who are new to the solution can search the internet for information to guide them and there are courses online to follow too.

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

When I first started using the solution I used a free trial, and then we upgraded to a pay-as-you-go subscription. We have an allocated budget of $50. I am happy with the pricing because the free trial project helped me progress. In our country, there are limitations for what payment methods we can use, we do not support PayPal, and credit card transactions are delayed. Hopefully, this gets better in the future. However, in other countries, this is not a widespread problem.

What other advice do I have?

The type of deployment of the solution depends on the need of the organization. There are some solutions that we deploy for the clients that we need in a more stable environment. In this case, we use the cloud. For testing purposes for internal projects, we use our own servers within the company. I think by the IP numbers, we can request to create a certain server and they created this for us. There are some clients that require a cloud-based solution, we have this capability but it is still in testing and it is not what we use our servers for.

I would recommend this solution for companies like small companies just starting out. It would be really helpful for them.

I rate Amazon AWS a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
CEO at Fit Ideas
Real User
Provides stable, on-demand cloud computing platforms
Pros and Cons
  • "It's easy to manage. We can use a wide range of technologies with AWS."
  • "I would like to receive some alerts when my consumption is getting out of the normal range."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution to deploy our products.

Within our company, there are at least five people using this solution. Usually, they are technical people — some software developers and a couple of infrastructure managers.

Whether we decide to increase our usage with this solution depends on our business development.

How has it helped my organization?

It allows us to deploy a production environment using Oracle Database, an API integrator, or by using our development tools. 

What is most valuable?

It's easy to manage. We can use a wide range of technologies with AWS.

What needs improvement?

It's very easy to configure and to use the platform, but we would like to be notified about our consumption. The consumption is a critical point for us because we are not always using the platform, but sometimes we receive high charges — high amounts of money for services that we didn't even use during that month, for instance.

I would like to receive some alerts when my consumption is getting out of the normal range.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for roughly two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's pretty stable. We haven't had any problems with the platform. Overall, I think it's quite optimized.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, haven't had any issues. We work with small to medium-sized solutions so we haven't really needed to test the limits.

How are customer service and technical support?

We haven't really had to contact technical support. The documentation is very complete and easy to understand. 

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

We tried using a Google cloud platform, but we had some configuration problems with some programs like WordPress. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very straightforward. I wasn't involved in the deployment, but I believe it took less than four hours.

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

The price could be lower. Currently, we spend between $300 to $1,000 dollars a month to use this solution. We try to avoid using a license if we can.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend AWS to other interested companies. It's a very stable platform. It's easy to use and you don't have to be an expert to deploy your first project. Obviously, you'll need to make use of some advanced features, but in that case, support is always available. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight. 

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
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Accelerates innovation through experimentation cycles in a scalable platform

What is most valuable?

Accelerates innovation through fast experimentation cycles in an agile, flexible, and scalable platform.

How has it helped my organization?

Enables fast prototyping, simulation, and rapid deployment of infrastructure configurations. Has low risk exploration of new architectural paradigms and technologies (FaaS, Containers, IoT, and Machine Learning) and is easy to integrate with current solutions.

What needs improvement?

Considering the rate of innovation of AWS and the vast range of services offered (over 15+ categories, 50+ services in 2017) the learning path of customers on the platform is something that can always be improved. Usability through simplification of the interface for the use cases chosen by the customer can be a possible improvement.

The current interface offers several options to select services, solutions, or learning paths. However, the ability to simplify the interface to focus on customer use cases could have an impact on productivity and ease of use.

This is a challenge that I’ve seen all cloud vendor share: Usability and different user experience on their platform is difficult when the span of services is so vast. However, some design thinking “persona” kind of approach could help offer alternative perspectives.

For how long have I used the solution?

  • Since 2012, in prototypes and proof of concepts
  • Since 2015, in production applications, advise, and support to some clients.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I’ve never experiences issues with stability related to the AWS infrastructure. The services are very resilient and there are constant reporting and monitoring tools available, a open status dashboard, and a personal health dashboard to receive news on any issues being investigated or sorted out. Even if there have been outages reported in AWS history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... their technical response capabilities have proven outstanding.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I’ve never experience issues with scalability. AWS services offer very flexible set of tools to architect solutions that give the best performance and economic advantages. Combined solutions using elastic computing capabilities, containers, APIs, and even more innovative server-less capabilities (FaaS) can be leveraged to tackle the most challenging use cases.

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

I previously favored RackSpace and Digital Ocean for simplicity and focus for certain use cases (development prototypes, proof-of-concepts, etc.). I prefer to concentrate investment and training on the same platform when solutions scale and require more complex setups. Leveraging the learning curve on the service offering is increasingly specialized.

How was the initial setup?

The setup is easy and greatly supported by the learning paths offered through the platform. Expertise is required to take full advantage of AWS tools and continuous innovations.

Some customers can become overwhelmed by the range of services, so training and assistance from specialized third-parties is strongly recommended. Even experimented managed service providers can complement internal capabilities and help in the training of internal teams.

One of the advantages of AWS is their high rate of innovation. However, in order to leverage this, internal or external expertise is required. A good partnership is recommended.

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

On demand, pay-as-you-go pricing is powerful to optimize expenses, but it’s important to keep a technical cost controlling function aware of usage and scale patterns to choose the best pricing mix.

Massive migration to cloud without analyzing the right service for the right usage can lead to higher cost than expected. It is important to get the right advice to match each use case needed to the optimum cloud economics.

Even if a lot of decisions to go to the cloud are based in the promise of lower costs, the true power of cloud services is their flexibility, rate of innovation, and avoiding vendor lock-in if architected consciously.

Even if a lift and shift approach with short schedules can lead to mistakes in choosing services and paying more than optimum, the speed in which you can correct the mistake is not comparable to any other infrastructure option.

This is forcing even the traditional hardware vendors to reinvent their business models and develop financial offerings that include operating expense based financing (pay-as-you-grow) or services based agreements (pay-as-you-go) to make their private cloud offerings competitive.

The other aspect to consider is the managed service required to get the most of this platform. Don’t underestimate the quality of the advice and support required. But at the same time, consider your core business management time released by adopting a platform instead of managing the components internally.

The internal expertise should evolve to understand how to use it best for the business outcomes pursued instead of the technicalities of how to make it. That’s where the right partnerships can be leveraged.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Azure, RackSpace, Google Cloud, SoftLayer, DigitalOcean, and Linode.

What other advice do I have?

Test drive it with prototype applications, reproduce development and testing environments, and standardize your stacks to be able to move them easily, if needed. The deeper that the infrastructure-as-code approach is part of your culture, the easier it will be to leverage hybrid opportunities and gain agility.

This solution has been consistently in the top of the IaaS market for the last 10 years.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user702306 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user702306Works at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Vendor

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PeerSpot user
Architect at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
We have been able to leverage the agility of Amazon to work faster. AWS's customer service is ridiculously good.

What is most valuable?

The features which are most valuable are EC2, S3, and the networking functionality. EC2 allows me to provision new servers in minutes. S3 allows me infinite, redundant, easily accessible storage. The networking functionality (VPC, Security Groups, subnets, etc) allow me to create robust networks that make sense. Availability Zones allow me to design systems that are resistant to failure.

How has it helped my organization?

One example is our devops people can provision new products and systems almost immediately. They have set up an instance of GitHub Enterprise which has become our "source of truth." We have created proofs-of-concept in hours to days to test and evaluate new products across the enterprise. We have been able to leverage the agility of AWS to work faster and, in some cases, "fail fast" so we can get on to the next thing, which works.

What needs improvement?

Probably customer education and awareness, especially in the Cyber Security area. Many people are mistrustful of public cloud offerings or misunderstand how things work. We'd like to use AWS a lot more for various workloads, but gaining approval to do the things we want to do is currently our biggest roadblock. This isn't necessarily AWS's fault, but hopefully they have the capacity to gain acceptance in the broader Cyber Security community.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for two years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Our main issues are learning how to deploy the most efficiently. We use Puppet and Jenkins to deploy. Other issues are employee awareness and training (which instance type to use, where to put things, which keys or security groups to use, etc).

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No more than expected number of stability issues. We have the occasional EBS volume go down but we expect that.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

None at all. AWS is infinitely scalable. Though on one occasion, our preferred instance type was not available in the Availability Zone we wanted it in.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service: AWS's customer service is ridiculously good. Back when I was admin of an account that only used a few hundred dollars a month, I got top-notch support from my account manager. He set up a couple of conference calls with Solution Architects with no hesitation. Now I preside over an account with significantly more usage, and the customer service remains great.Technical Support: AWS has some really smart people who can analyse my technical questions and give me a cogent, useful answer in short order. Their tech support is top-notch.

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

We have also use Terremark e-Cloud, but their cost and lack of features turned us off. I don't believe it was an either-or situation, though. We used both but are moving out of e-Cloud and are staying in AWS.

How was the initial setup?

I was not with my current agency during the initial set-up phase.

What about the implementation team?

The agency used a vendor team. I'm with that vendor team and I think we're pretty good, but I'm biased.

What was our ROI?

We don't calculate ROI, but AWS definitely helps us fulfull the agency's mission, which is how we measure things here.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I personally have evaluated Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Neither seemed as robust or mature as AWS.

What other advice do I have?

Jump right in and make liberal use of AWS' technical support. Even now, I see people hesitating to ask and trying to figure it out for themselves. AWS is always ready to help. It's both complicated and useful enough that it's very easy to build things in a suboptimal way if you don't think things through and follow their guidance. So get all your hands-on staff to take the training they offer and don't be shy about asking for help. The training is big.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: AWS premier partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1314195 - PeerSpot reviewer
Digital Services- Cloud Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
You can quickly build and release applications, but performance is weaker than on-prem solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "You can build and release applications quickly with AWS instead of waiting for months to get the necessary hardware. That's the real benefit. The time-to-market for developing applications is much shorter."
  • "One problem is that the AWS public cloud doesn't have shared storage capabilities. The second thing is the cloud performance versus on-prem."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to run workload applications, ERP systems, LISAP systems, etc. Everything is on the cloud, including our technical infrastructure for computing, storage, and networking. You can deploy applications like SAP or Oracle or run any website with applications on it.

How has it helped my organization?

You can build and release applications quickly with AWS instead of waiting for months to get the necessary hardware. That's the real benefit. The time-to-market for developing applications is much shorter. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable thing about AWS is its ease of use and agility. You can quickly deploy it, and there are no upfront costs.

What needs improvement?

One problem is that the AWS public cloud doesn't have shared storage capabilities. The second thing is the cloud performance versus on-prem. I also have one suggestion that's solution-based. For example, if I want to deploy a medical solution, I would like to have a medical template, so I don't have to set up the infrastructure from scratch. They should provide everything in a pre-defined custom solution blueprint. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using AWS for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

AWS is generally reliable, but we've seen a lot of issues lately, so I would say they have some room for improvement. For example, if the user doesn't configure something correctly, it might fail. Even if AWS is reliable, that doesn't guarantee that all the users will be reliable. They need to make the design foolproof. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

AWS is a cloud provider, so the scalability is almost infinite. Our company currently has around 500 users on AWS. 

How are customer service and support?

We have enterprise support, so they have different levels. If you have enterprise support, they have obligations they must meet. In our experience, Amazon support is above average. Sometimes we get good support. Sometimes we don't. I would rate it six out of 10. 

How was the initial setup?

The AWS initial setup is seamless and straightforward. We set it up ourselves, and we have a 10-person team to manage and maintain the solution. Including design and planning, it took us about three months. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate AWS seven out of 10. My advice is to watch out for the cost. A public cloud means you can use any resource, and there is no upfront cost. That means someone can use an expensive computing solution that might cost them tons of money. No one is holding your hand, so you can use it, but you need to be conscious of the cost before using the solution.

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
reviewer1759671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Architect
Real User
Good functionality and UI with quick-responding technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial implementation process is not difficult or complex."
  • "The availability could be better."

What is our primary use case?

We are primarily using the solution for evaluation purposes.

What is most valuable?

The functionality and the UI are both very straightforward.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The stability is good.

Technical support is quick to assist.

What needs improvement?

The pricing could be better. It's a bit expensive. 

The availability could be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't had any issues that would bring stability into question. there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I can't speak to the scaling. It's not something I've attempted. I just use it myself.

I can't say that there are plans to increase usage right now. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support has been great. They are helpful and responsive. They are very fast.

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

This is my first cloud product. I did not use something previously.

How was the initial setup?

The initial implementation process is not difficult or complex. It's straightforward. It's basically having the computing power, the storage, S3, and the database.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was handled in-house. We did not use an external integrator, reseller, or consultant.

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

It's a costly product.

We pay a monthly licensing fee. It's below $100 a month.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I haven't done any evaluations or comparisons with other products.

What other advice do I have?

We are customers.

We are using the latest version of the solution.

I'd rate the solution at an eight 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?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1716381 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Has excellent cloud storage and compute services
Pros and Cons
  • "The features that I have found most valuable are its cloud storage and compute services."
  • "Its only cons are on the data warehouse side. AWS' data warehouse Redshift is not as good as it should be."

What is our primary use case?

We use Amazon AWS as a data platform.

What is most valuable?

The features that I have found most valuable are its cloud storage and compute services.

What needs improvement?

Amazon AWS could improve on its data warehousing appliance.

Its only cons are on the data warehouse side. AWS' data warehouse Redshift is not as good as it should be.

In terms of what should be in the next release, I would say nothing much other than that AWS has a lot of services doing similar work. If they could consolidate and make sure that the services are defined appropriately, that would be an improvement. Currently, there is a duplicacy of work.

For how long have I used the solution?

I'm working with AWS for almost five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good.

You do not need tons of people for maintenance, because a lot of automation will be brought in by AWS, and you can have one or two people to manage the platform.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Amazon AWS' scalability is very good.

There are a lot of features that require scaling - the scale up and scale down aspects of load balancer, Spot Instances, On-Demand Instances, and all those things. You can configure your limits, and based on that, the computer infrastructure can be scaled up.

There are tons of users using it. Whatever the project I work on, there are almost 200 users using it.

There are lot of data engineers, data scientists, and business users using it.

How are customer service and support?

Customer and technical support are very good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

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

The licensing costs are all similar. All charges are similar in nature, such as storage cost, compute cost, VM cost, or VP costs, and all those things. Two advantages on this point here are whether you take Spot Instances or if you reserve for long term usage, then you'll get a lot of benefit.

If you want to use any third party services you have to pay from the Marketplace, but the other things are all pay-as-you-go kind of a model.

What other advice do I have?

Amazon has a great customer base and lot of success stories. That is one advantage that AWS has, whereas the others are catching up. Recently they have more case studies, but for overall breadth of the industry and breadth of the customer experiences, AWS has more customers. AWS has more services than the other competitors.

My advice to anyone thinking about using Amazon AWS is that they need to set up the foundation well, and they need to choose the right partner to do the implementation. The more experience the partner has, the better the implementation will be.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Amazon AWS an eight.

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
Head of Data Projects at Cognitivo
Real User
An on-demand cloud computing platform that has a lot of specific solutions for different use cases
Pros and Cons
  • "I like that the products are specific and objective. We can resolve a problem using a simple configuration. It's so easy to implement a solution and solve a problem using AWS solutions. AWS has a lot of specific solutions for different use cases. I think that this is the most important thing that made us consider using AWS."
  • "It would be better if there was a way to see which components were still on. We have some situations where I forget that some components are turned on. We forget some components are on, and we only see that these components are on when we see the bill at the end of the month. It would also be better if AWS had specialized firewalls or integrations with leading products. For example, a specialized firewall with content filtering. We were looking for some firewall tools, and we saw that AWS doesn't have any specialized firewall tools in its services portfolio. So, we are looking for other tools like FortKnox, Forcepoint, and Check Point because we didn't find the solutions in AWS services."

What is our primary use case?

We usually use Amazon AWS to implement data lake solutions. We extract data from an AWS project that we implement, or we extract data from databases and centralize them with AWS components in AWS services. So, we create an infrastructure for our clients to consume their data. I like the components we use, like Amazon DMS or Database Migration Services, F3, and Amazon Athena. I think that these are the main components or the main services that we use.

What is most valuable?

I like that the products are specific and objective. We can resolve a problem using a simple configuration. It's so easy to implement a solution and solve a problem using AWS solutions. AWS has a lot of specific solutions for different use cases. I think that this is the most important thing that made us consider using AWS.

What needs improvement?

It would be better if there was a way to see which components were still on. We have some situations where I forget that some components are turned on. We forget some components are on, and we only see that these components are on when we see the bill at the end of the month.

It would also be better if AWS had specialized firewalls or integrations with leading products. For example, a specialized firewall with content filtering. We were looking for some firewall tools, and we saw that AWS doesn't have any specialized firewall tools in its services portfolio. So, we are looking for other tools like FortKnox, Forcepoint, and Check Point because we didn't find the solutions in AWS services.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for about three years.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Amazon AWS a nine.

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: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.