AWS Global Infrastructure Overview

A. AWS Global Infrastructure

The AWS Global Infrastructure is designed and built to deliver a flexible, reliable, scalable, and securecloud computing environment with high-quality global network performance. AWS continually updates its global infrastructure footprint. Visit one of the following web pages for current infrastructure information:

• AWS Global Infrastructure Map: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/#AWS_Global_Infrastructure_Map
• Regions and Availability Zones: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/regions_az/

1. AWS Regions

• An AWS Regionis a geographical area. Data replication across Regions is controlled by you, Communication between Regions uses AWS backbone network infrastructure.
• Each Region provides full redundancy and connectivity to the network.
• A Region typically consists of two or more Availability Zones

2. Selecting a Region

a) Data governance, legal requirements: Different regions have varying regulations regarding data privacy, security, and residency. It’s crucial to comply with local laws to avoid legal issues and ensure data protection.

b) Proximity to customers (latency): The closer your servers or business presence is to your customers, the lower the latency (delay) they’ll experience when accessing your services. This can improve user experience and satisfaction.

c) Services available within the Region: Regions may offer different sets of services provided by cloud providers or other infrastructure providers. Assessing available services can help you determine if a region meets your technical requirements.

d) Costs (vary by Region): Costs can vary significantly between regions due to factors such as real estate prices, labor costs, taxes, and utility expenses. It’s essential to consider the overall cost of operations in each region to ensure it aligns with your budget and financial goals.

When selecting a region, you’ll need to prioritize these factors based on your specific needs and objectives. For example, if minimizing latency is crucial for your business, you might prioritize proximity to customers over cost considerations. Conversely, if cost-effectiveness is a primary concern, you might opt for a region with lower operating expenses, even if it means slightly higher latency or stricter regulatory requirements.

It’s also beneficial to conduct thorough research, consult with legal experts familiar with regional regulations, and consider long-term implications before making a decision. Additionally, cloud service providers often provide tools and resources to help analyze these factors and make informed decisions when choosing a region for hosting services.

3. Availability Zones

a) Each Regionhas multiple Availability Zones.

b) Each Availability Zoneis a fully isolated partition of the AWS infrastructure.

• Availability Zones consist of discrete data centers
• They are designed for fault isolation
• They are interconnected with other Availability Zones by using high-speed private networking
• You choose your Availability Zones.
• AWS recommends replicating data and resources across Availability Zones for resiliency.

4. AWS data centers

• AWS data centers are designed for security.
• Data centers are where the data resides and data processing occurs.
• Each data center has redundant power, networking, and connectivity, and is housed in a separate facility.
• A data center typically has 50,000 to 80,000 physical servers.

5. Points of Presence

• AWS provides a global network of Points of Presence locations
• Consists of edge locations and a much smaller number of Regional edge caches
• Used with Amazon CloudFront:A global Content Delivery Network (CDN), that delivers content to end users withreduced latency
• Regional edge caches used for content with infrequent access

6. AWS infrastructure features

a) Elasticity and scalability

• Elastic infrastructure; dynamic adaption of capacity
• Scalable infrastructure; adapts to accommodate growth

b) Fault-tolerance

• Continues operating properly in the presence of a failure
• Built-in redundancy of components•High availability

c) High level of operational performance

• Minimized downtime
• No human intervention

B. AWS services and service category overview

1. AWS foundational services

The AWS Global Infrastructure is composed of three main components: Regions, Availability Zones, and Points of Presence (PoPs), which encompass edge locations. These components facilitate the delivery of various services, including networking, storage, compute services, and databases. AWS services are provided on-demand, enabling rapid access within seconds, and follow a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

For accessibility:
The AWS Global Infrastructure consists of Regions, Availability Zones, and edge locations. Services like networking, storage, compute, and databases are offered on-demand with pay-as-you-go pricing. A marketing diagram illustrates this infrastructure, showcasing foundational services like compute, networking, and storage at the forefront, followed by platform services such as databases, analytics, and app services. Finally, the top layer includes applications like virtual desktops, collaboration, and sharing.

2. AWS categories of services

AWS offers a diverse range of cloud-based services, spanning 23 different product or service categories, each containing multiple services. While this course doesn’t cover every service, it focuses on those widely used and essential for understanding the AWS Cloud, particularly those relevant to the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. The highlighted categories include Compute, Cost Management, Database, Management and Governance, Networking and Content Delivery, Security, Identity, and Compliance, and Storage. Further information on AWS products can be found on the Cloud Products page, where services are organized by categories. Each service category includes detailed descriptions and benefits, accessible by clicking on individual products. With this guidance, learners can explore and understand the various service groups, preparing them for the subsequent discussion of highlighted service categories in the course.

3. Storage service category

AWS offers a comprehensive suite of storage services catering to diverse needs. Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) provides scalable object storage with robust features for data security, availability, and performance, serving purposes like website hosting, mobile apps, backups, and big data analytics. Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) offers high-performance block storage optimized for Amazon EC2 instances, supporting various workloads including databases, enterprise applications, and media workflows. Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) delivers scalable, fully managed NFS file systems for AWS and on-premises resources, dynamically scaling to petabytes without manual capacity management. Lastly, Amazon Glacier offers a secure, low-cost archival storage solution with high durability and compliance features, ideal for long-term data retention and backup needs. These services, along with others, provide flexible storage options for a wide range of applications and use cases within the AWS ecosystem.

4. Compute service category

AWS provides a diverse range of compute services to meet various workload requirements. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) offers scalable virtual machines in the cloud, while Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling automates instance management based on predefined conditions. Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) facilitate the orchestration and scaling of containerized applications, supporting Docker and Kubernetes, respectively. Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) simplifies Docker image management, while AWS Fargate allows for serverless container execution within Amazon ECS. AWS Elastic Beanstalk streamlines the deployment and scaling of web applications on familiar server environments like Apache and Microsoft IIS. Additionally, AWS Lambda enables serverless execution of code, with charges solely based on compute consumption. These services, alongside others, offer flexible and efficient compute solutions for diverse use cases within the AWS ecosystem.

5. Database service category

AWS offers a diverse range of database services tailored to different needs. Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) simplifies the setup, operation, and scalability of relational databases in the cloud, automating administrative tasks such as provisioning, setup, patching, and backups. Amazon Aurora provides high-performance, MySQL, and PostgreSQL-compatible relational databases, boasting up to five times faster speeds than standard MySQL and three times faster than standard PostgreSQL databases.

Amazon Redshift is a powerful data warehousing solution that enables analytical queries on petabytes of data stored locally or exabytes stored in Amazon S3, delivering rapid performance at any scale. Amazon DynamoDB is a versatile key-value and document database offering millisecond-level performance at any scale, featuring built-in security, backup, restore, and in-memory caching capabilities. Alongside these services, AWS offers additional database solutions to cater to diverse data storage and processing requirements within its cloud ecosystem.

6. Networking and content delivery service category

AWS networking and content delivery services include the services listed here, and many others.

• Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC)
• Elastic Load Balancing
• Amazon CloudFront
• AWS Transit Gateway
• Amazon Route 53
• AWS Direct Connect
• AWS VPN

7. Security, identity, and compliance service category

AWS security, identity, and compliance services include the services listed here, and many others.

• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• AWS Organizations
• AWS Artifact
• AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)
• AWS Shield

8. AWS cost management service category

AWS cost management services include the services listed here, and others.

• The AWS Cost and Usage Report
• AWS Budgets
• AWS Cost Explorer

9. Management and governance service category

AWS management and governance services include the services listed here, and others.

• AWS Config
• Amazon CloudWatch
• AWS Auto Scaling
• AWS Command Line Interface
• AWS Well-Architected Too
• AWS CloudTrail

10. Hands-on activity: AWS Management Console clickthrough

The activity aims to familiarize participants with the AWS Management Console by providing hands-on experience in navigating through various AWS service consoles, such as the Amazon VPC console. Through this exercise, participants will learn to navigate between different service categories and gain an understanding of whether a particular service or resource is global or regional in scope. The instructions provided on the slide guide participants through the activity, and upon completion, the educator will lead a review session to discuss any questions or concerns raised by the students.