I've used it to create some internal projects for my organization, particularly for designing the infrastructure of those projects.
One feature I find most valuable is the easy deployment by using the channel model for serverless architecture. Another feature I find valuable is the versatility of the service S3 because it allows you to give permissions to describe the users from their own accounts, from external users, or external accounts.
On the console, they used to have some shortcuts making this solution easier to work with, but now we have been dealing with so many problems on the console, and some of the options are not very useful in my perspective, so they should bring back those options that make things easier to run some of the services.
Most of the time the options are pre-selected, or you have to go with the default settings, but from my perspective, there are some services which are now more complicated to use than before.
An additional feature I'd like to see in the future is more integration with public repositories, though some use their own repositories for security purposes, but I think it'll be easier to deploy services through public repositories.
I've been using this solution for almost four years now.
This solution is stable. I've been using it for a long time and have only seen an outage in one of the regions. It's a good solution.
The scalability of this solution is good.
The technical support of AWS is very good. When I need something, they reach out to me fast.
The initial setup was straightforward. The complexity of the setup will depend on the number of services e.g. it's something that involves a lot of services, it could get complex, but for a complex setup, you could use things like transformation or Terraform because they will enable you to use infrastructure as a code to make it easier. There's a lot of things to configure.
Licensing of this solution is paid on a yearly basis.
I evaluated Microsoft Azure.
This was deployed on the cloud. I don't remember which version because I didn't deploy it. I was not the person running the project of implementing AWS, but I know the client used it, but I don't know which version.
It's not so difficult to use because there's a lot of tutorials.
I'm not completely sure about the number of AWS users in our organization. We have a partnership with them so we have some accounts, but we don't completely have our load on AWS. We are mostly on Azure. Our main server is on Azure. On AWS, we mostly have some internal projects and services, but most of the main load is on Azure.
We have a small workload on AWS. Sometimes we use it to deploy some of our best projects. We use it on some internal projects. It's a random thing so it could be 1,000 users or 50 users. I'll say approximately 200 to 500 users.
We don't require too many people for deploying this solution because our projects are proof of concepts. Up to ten people from different departments would be needed for deployment if it's a business requirement e.g. people from Approvals and Projects, etc.
As for increasing AWS usage, the organization sometimes thinks of moving some of the load to AWS because of good pricing, because currently, our main streams are on Azure, but it's not a sure thing.
I'm unsure if there's any additional cost aside from the need to pay the license annually because I don't directly manage it.
My advice to organizations looking into implementing AWS, especially if they're going to use it on a big scale, is to take advantage of AWS' organization model to make integration with their policies easier. It will also make administration easier for the different accounts, departments, and structure of the organizations thinking of moving to AWS.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.