What is our primary use case?
We use Amazon AWS together with MuleSoft's CloudHub, because CloudHub is an extension of Amazon VPC. As part of that, when we set up the infrastructure and everything, we will be interacting with Amazon products. And with big customers, we have data in the private cloud and within that private cloud we have the MuleSoft CloudHub which is connected through the organization's private cloud to a specific geographical AWS public cloud. Regarding security, we also have a number of layers there, too.
As an example, we have seen approximately 300 ETFs developed for different areas, e.g. for United Arab Emirates and other customers. And the internal customers are also using AWS. All in all, there are approximately 10,000+ users who are using it, and things are going pretty well.
What is most valuable?
The reason I like AWS is that they have a large market share and a large presence. When it comes to our use case, a big positive is that MuleSoft and AWS are working together very well. So instead of competing against each other, they're meshing together.
What needs improvement?
There have been some issues in the past when it comes to file integrations in AWS's cloud products. However, there are now alternative solutions out there that are helping to integrate them all.
One thing is that sometimes it becomes a problem when troubleshooting our tools because when you have some things local and some things remote on a foreign server, it can get complicated. We find that sometimes it's a challenge to gather the necessary information from logs and such because you need the proper agreement to capture those details.
In the future, I would like to see Amazon move more into local clouds, by capturing more of the small market. Nowadays, spending a lot of money is not on the list of priorities for many companies, especially considering what's going on in the world. We want to leverage whatever amount is available and still get all the benefits of new AWS cloud offerings.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon AWS for a couple of years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The infrastructure of AWS is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never worked with technical support personally because we have a lot of network engineers to handle that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
When it comes to pricing, not all applications require that much performance. That's the reason why other cloud markets are also catching up, because the two predominantly high-performance platforms, AWS and GCP, are almost the same.
Looking at the primary market for AWS, I see that there's a lot of customers who have only mid-level performance requirements, because you will have all these normal applications such as online auction websites, gaming applications, voice applications, and so on. These are not, for example, large monitoring applications, financial independents, or brick and mortar companies. So AWS caters to about 40% of the market when it comes to general applications.
As it happens, in many cases, you simply don't need the high-performance offerings from AWS, nor the innovative products from Google Cloud Platform, which can come with large price tags.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, AWS is pretty good and I can definitely recommend it because it's a proven product. When you're solving big problems, you want — first and foremost — proven infrastructure, technology, tools, and mechanisms. Then slowly, you'll be able to remove dependencies by moving to others as needed. So for project initiation and everything, you get to rely on something which is rock solid and proven in the industry with a long track record.
I know AWS can be an expensive option, but it doesn't have to be out of budget if you choose the appropriate level of product for your performance requirements. They can provide high-performance computing resources, while at the same time catering to the mid-level market with lower performance offerings.
Previously, in the initial days of AWS, back in 2005/2006, there were some concerns about security and such things, but nowadays there is not much to worry about because a lot of those concerns have been taken care of. Recently, there has been another shift in attitude towards them, because not everybody is a big fan of public cloud because of what is happening in the world with respect to data privacy and everything.
Regardless, the three big names of Microsoft, Google, and AWS are really grabbing the market, and IBM is also catching up well. Because of the data privacy concerns, however, I do see some customization in European countries who are interested in interacting with the cloud market at a more local level.
I would rate Amazon AWS 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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.