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reviewer1381863 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Consultant
Good availability, reliable, and scalable, but it's expensive
Pros and Cons
  • "The availability is good, you can get any service you need immediately."
  • "AWS is very expensive."

What is our primary use case?

There is a large list of products that are available in the cloud, from computing to mail hosting and server services that are available in the AWS cloud.

They provide you with computing resources and IT services. 

What is most valuable?

In terms of features, I would rate it a nine.

This is a product that is easy to use and highly available. The availability is good, you can get any service you need immediately.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for five or six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable.

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January 2025
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a very scalable product. We have 200 users in our organization who are using AWS.

How are customer service and support?

They provide support at different levels.

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

Previously, we did not use another solution. 

We use our own server in the cloud or we use AWS.

How was the initial setup?

It is in the cloud, there is no installation.

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

Pricing, I would rate a five out of ten. AWS is very expensive.

It's paid on a monthly basis and you have to pay for the resources that you use.

There is no licensing in AWS, you pay per usage.

What other advice do I have?

We have reduced usability to a few situations because we have our own hosting cloud server.

I would not recommend this solution,  I would recommend something from the competitors.

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
Enterprise Solutions Executive (AWS Certified Solutions Architect) at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Scalable, easy to set up and very easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "The product is highly scalable."
  • "The feedback we are getting from our customers, especially here in Turkey where the exchange rate fluctuates regularly, is that the solution is quite expensive."

What is most valuable?

The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect for us at this point.

You can manage everything from the console, which is very convenient. 

The high level of technology of the database services being served to the customers is impressive. 

The security is excellent. We feel very protected by the solution.

The solution is very easy to set up.

The product is highly scalable.

There is very good documentation available to users for troubleshooting, et cetera.

What needs improvement?

From a technology standpoint, the solution is almost perfect. We don't feel that anything is lacking in that sense.

The feedback we are getting from our customers, especially here in Turkey where the exchange rate fluctuates regularly, is that the solution is quite expensive. Other cloud competitors are less costly. From our country's point of view, I would say that it needs to be cheaper.

When the solution faces downtime, it can be for hours or half a day. This is far too long.

For how long have I used the solution?

I would say that I started using AWS around 2017.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. That said, there are some instances that some of the services in some of the regions might go down. The downtime sometimes will last longer than you expected. We expect that occasionally the downtime maybe a few minutes or half an hour. That's not always the case. Sometimes it can be hours. Sometimes it can even be half a day. For us, the downtime is a problem. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is highly scalable. You can create thousands of servers in minutes or something like that, so it's very scalable. If a company needs to expand, it can do so with ease using this solution.

The types of businesses we typically deal with are rather small. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't used technical support. I haven't yet had a need to. Therefore, I can't discuss anything in regards to their helpfulness or knowledgeability. That speaks to how good their product has been overall.

That said, if you run into problems, most of the issues that you are having in terms of technical difficulties can be solved within the documentation.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is very easy to install. If you start short-term with the database services, and if you then get the Web Services, it's very easy. A company shouldn't have any trouble setting everything up. It's not complex.

I tend to manage the solution for my clients once it is installed.

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

Due to currency fluctuations in Turkey, we find the product to be on the more expensive side. There are other, cheaper options on the market.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a consultant. If the customer wants an AWS solution or AWS consultancy, I give these services to them. If they want some local provider, I also work with them.

We are using the latest version of the solution.

Most of my clients don't know the technology and don't want to get into deep technical knowledge in terms of the solution itself. They don't want to manage AWS. They just want to let someone manage their infrastructure and AWS services for them. There aren't too many large companies dealing with AWS on a massive scale in Turkey. I don't really deal with larger entities anyway.

So long as an organization's focus is not on pricing, I would recommend the solution.

In general, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PeerSpot user
Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Pay as you go is a plus but I would like to see better technical support without paying for AWS Premium Support

Use Of Solution:

4 years.

Valuable Features:

(1) Self-service without upfront cost

(2) Pay as you go & continual cost/price reduction 

(3) Pervasive service offerings with continual improvement

Improvements To Organization:

We were developing a sync-and-share cloud service + mobile/desktop application for multimedia products at that time (2009). It saved lots of development & testing efforts compared to traditional IT process. As you know, multimedia files take tons of storage space, IaaS's pay as you go and no upfront cost was a major deciding factor to develop that project/product.

Room For Improvement:

(1) ELB stress testing is problematic for us at that time.

(2) Better technical support for those without paying AWS Premium Support.

Stability Issues:

I have the vague impression that we did run into some issues, but I don't remember the context.

Customer Service:

3.5 out of 5.

Technical Support:

3.5 out of 5. We didn't purchase/subscribe AWS Premium Support at that time, so we got very limited technical support from AWS forum, and AWS technical staff in Singapore. As AWS's expanded into different geographic regions with local team support, expect it should be better now.

Initial Setup:

Relatively straightforward, but would be more complex when taking security into consideration.

Implementation Team:

In-house.

Alternate Solutions:

Different projects have different business goals and requirements (business & technical). We evaluated different vendors' service offerings for different projects/products. For instance, the aforementioned multimedia sync-and-share project was built on top of AWS. We also built a device firmware update service and a connection management service on top of AWS. However, for another online video editing, social-driven free cloud service, we built it on top of GAE instead.

Other Advice:

As mentioned in previous answer, different projects have different functional and non-functional requirements. All perspectives from operation, management, and development should be evaluated for cloud service platforms.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer931998 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Professor at a university with 51-200 employees
Real User
User friendly, scalable, and simple installation
Pros and Cons
  • "Amazon AWS is very user-friendly."

    What is our primary use case?

    I do research and I am using Amazon AWS for storage in the cloud.

    What is most valuable?

    Amazon AWS is very user-friendly.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Amazon AWS for approximately one year.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Amazon AWS is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I have found Amazon AWS to be scalable.

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

    I have used Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS together.

    How was the initial setup?

    The implementation is straightforward.

    What about the implementation team?

    I did the implementation of the solution myself.

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

    The license for Amazon AWS is expensive. I am currently using the free version.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would recommend this solution to others.

    I rate Amazon AWS an eight 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
    Assistant Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Easy to install, good dashboards, and good reporting
    Pros and Cons
    • "I am happy with the dashboard."
    • "I have trouble with the AWS command-line interface."

    What is our primary use case?

    I use Amazon AWS in a Windows environment.

    What is most valuable?

    I like everything about AWS, especially the reporting.

    I am happy with the dashboard.

    What needs improvement?

    I have trouble with the AWS command-line interface.

    The security could be improved.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Amazon AWS for approximately three months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    AWS is a stable solution.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I have not tried to scale when using AWS.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is easy.

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

    The price is good and licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate this solution a ten 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: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
    PeerSpot user
    PeerSpot user
    Senior Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
    Consultant
    Great platform to spin up servers in minutes; provides multiple tools for administrators; UI can be puzzling sometimes

    Valuable Features

    EBS, Availability Zones, VPC, Support for high I/O instances

    Customer Service and Technical Support

    Customer Service: Could be made much betterTechnical Support: Excellent

    Initial Setup

    Slightly complex because of the user interface which is not simple for first time users
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user8364 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Partner at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
    Consultant
    AWS: What are the key Amazon Web Services components?

    Over the last couple of years, the popularity of the “cloud computing” has grown dramatically and along with it so has the dominance of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the market. Unfortunately, AWS doesn’t do a great job of explaining exactly what AWS is, how its pieces work together, or what typical use cases for its components may be. This post is an effort to address this by providing a whip around overview of the key AWS components and how they can be effectively used.

    Great, so what is AWS? Generally speaking, Amazon Web Services is a loosely coupled collection of “cloud” infrastructure services that allows customers to “rent” computing resources. What this means is that using AWS, you as the client are able to flexibly provision various computing resources on a “pay as you go” pricing model. Expecting a huge traffic spike? AWS has you covered. Need to flexibly store between 1 GB or 100 GB of photos? AWS has you covered. Additionally, each of the components that makes up AWS is generally loosely coupled meaning that they can work independently or in concert with other AWS resources.

    Keep reading

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer1323930 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Database Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Creates less work for DBAs but they should offer more upgrading guidance
    Pros and Cons
    • "There is less work for the DBAs. Everything is handled in AWS itself."
    • "We don't know whether to increase server capacity or alert notifications. We don't know which hard disc to purchase or what the next recommended CPU is. There should be an indicator. We would like to have more guidance."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case is for cloud storage.

    What is most valuable?

    There is less work for the DBAs. Everything is handled in AWS itself.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We don't have issues with stability or scalability.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We manage support issues, we don't depend on others for technical support.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

    In an RDS environment, we only get the CPU utilization and this thing. The growth rate and free space increases. Getting the CPU utilization is 99% or 90% sometimes.

    We don't know whether to increase server capacity or alert notifications. We don't know which hard disc to purchase or what the next recommended CPU is. There should be an indicator. We would like to have more guidance. 

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: January 2025
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.