Amazon AWS Reviews and Pricing

Independent Analyst and Advisory Consultant at Server StorageIO - www.storageio.com

Mar 26, 2015

I like the new ability for moving S3 objects within AWS, however I will continue to use other tools for moving data in and out of AWS.

Pros and Cons

"For those who are looking for a way to streamline replicating data (e.g. objects) from an AWS bucket in one region with a bucket in a different region you now have a new option."

"However a catch with the above mentioned tools (among others) and approaches is that to replicate your data (e.g. objects in a bucket) can involve other AWS S3 fees."

Cloud Conversations: AWS S3 Cross Region Replication storage enhancements

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently among other enhancements announced new Simple Storage Service (S3) cross-region replication of objects from a bucket (e.g. container) in one region to a bucket in another region. AWS also recently enhanced Elastic Block Storage (EBS) increasing maximum performance and size of Provisioned IOPS (SSD) and General Purpose (SSD) volumes. EBS enhancements included ability to store up to 16 TBytes of data in a single volume and do 20,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS). Read more about EBS and other recent AWS server, storage I/O and application enhancements here.

The Problem, Issue, Challenge, Opportunity and Need

The challenge is being able to move data (e.g. objects) stored in AWS buckets in one region to another in a safe, secure, timely, automated, cost-effective way.

Even though AWS has a global name-space, buckets and their objects (e.g. files, data, videos, images, bit and byte streams) are stored in a specific region designated by the customer or user (AWS S3, EBS, EC2, Glacier, Regions and Availability Zone primer can be found here).

Understanding the challenge and designing a strategy

The following diagram shows the challenge and how to copy or replicate objects in an S3 bucket in one region to a destination bucket in a different region. While objects can be copied or replicated without S3 cross-region replication, that involves essentially reading your objects pulling that data out via the internet and then writing to another place. The catch is that this can add extra costs, take time, consume network bandwidth and need extra tools (Cloudberry, Cyberduck, S3fuse, S3motion, S3browser, S3 tools (not AWS) and a long list of others).

What is AWS S3 Cross-region replication

Highlights of AWS S3 Cross-region replication include:

AWS S3 Cross region replication is as its name implies, replication of S3 objects from a bucket in one region to a destination bucket in another region.
S3 replication of new objects added to an existing or new bucket (note new objects get replicated)
Policy based replication tied into S3 versioning and life-cycle rules
Quick and easy to set up for use in a matter of minutes via S3 dashboard or other interfaces
Keeps region to region data replication and movement within AWS networks (potential cost advantage)

To activate, you simply enable versioning on a bucket, enable cross-region replication, indicate source bucket (or prefix of objects in bucket), specify destination region and target bucket name (or create one), then create or select an IAM (Identify Access Management) role and objects should be replicated.

Some AWS S3 cross-region replication things to keep in mind (e.g. considerations):
As with other forms of mirroring and replication if you add something on one side it gets replicated to other side
As with other forms of mirroring and replication if you deleted something from the other side it can be deleted on both (be careful and do some testing)
Keep costs in perspective as you still need to pay for your S3 storage at both locations as well as applicable internal data transfer and GET fees
Click here to see current AWS S3 fees for various regions

S3 Cross-region replication and alternative approaches

There are several regions around the world and up until today AWS customers could copy, sync or replicate S3 bucket contents between AWS regions manually (or via automation) using various tools such as Cloudberry, Cyberduck, S3browser and S3motion to name just a few as well as via various gateways and other technologies. Some of those tools and technologies are open-source or free, some are freemium and some are premium for a few that also vary by interface (some with GUI, others with CLI or APIs) including ability to mount an S3 bucket as a local network drive and use tools to sync or copy.

However a catch with the above mentioned tools (among others) and approaches is that to replicate your data (e.g. objects in a bucket) can involve other AWS S3 fees. For example reading data (e.g. a GET which has a fee) from one AWS region and then copying out to the internet has fees. Likewise when copying data into another AWS S3 region (e.g. a PUT which are free) there is also the cost of storage at the destination.

AWS S3 cross-region hands on experience (first look)

For my first hands on (first look) experience with AWS cross-region replication today I enabled a bucket in the US Standard region (e.g. Northern Virginia) and created a new target destination bucket in the EU Ireland. Setup and configuration was very quick, literally just a few minutes with most of the time spent reading the text on the new AWS S3 dashboard properties configuration displays.

I selected an existing test bucket to replicate and noticed that nothing had replicated over to the other bucket until I realized that new objects would be replicated. Once some new objects were added to the source bucket within a matter of moments (e.g. few minutes) they appeared across the pond in my EU Ireland bucket. When I deleted those replicated objects from my EU Ireland bucket and switched back to my view of the source bucket in the US, those new objects were already deleted from the source. Yes, just like regular mirroring or replication, pay attention to how you have things configured (e.g. synchronized vs. contribute vs. echo of changes etc.).

While I was not able to do a solid quantifiable performance test, simply based on some quick copies and my network speed moving via S3 cross-region replication was faster than using something like s3motion with my server in the middle.

It also appears from some initial testing today that a benefit of AWS S3 cross-region replication (besides being bundled and part of AWS) is that some fees to pull data out of AWS and transfer out via the internet can be avoided.

Where to learn more

Here are some links to learn more about AWS S3 and related topics

What this all means and wrap-up

For those who are looking for a way to streamline replicating data (e.g. objects) from an AWS bucket in one region with a bucket in a different region you now have a new option. There are potential cost savings if that is your goal along with performance benefits in addition to using what ever might be working in your environment. Replicating objects provides a way of expanding your business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BR) and disaster recovery (DR) involving S3 across regions as well as a means for content cache or distribution among other possible uses.

Overall, I like this ability for moving S3 objects within AWS, however I will continue to use other tools such as S3motion and s3sfs for moving data in and out of AWS as well as among other public cloud serves and local resources.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user189768

Salesforce/Amazon/AWS Trainer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Feb 9, 2015

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The product is simple and can be learned with online documentation.

Pros and Cons

"Yes I used Microsoft Azure but it only provides a free trial for one month, so I switched to AWS as Amazon provides AWS cloud as a free trial for one year, which is an ample amount of time to grasp the cloud concepts and gain hands-on experience."

What is most valuable?

EC2, EBS, Security, and RDS services are all good.

How has it helped my organization?

Currently I'm using the product for learning purposes.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used if for over a year.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not yet.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Very nice.

Technical Support:

Very good.

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

Yes I used Microsoft Azure but it only provides a free trial for one month. This duration is not sufficient to learn cloud services. Hence I switched to AWS as Amazon provides AWS cloud as a free trial for one year. That is an ample amount of time to grasp the cloud concepts and gain hands-on experience.

What about the implementation team?

The product is simple and can be learned with online documentation.

What was our ROI?

Very convenient.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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it_user105252

CTO at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees

Aug 24, 2014

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The technical support was a 7 on a scale of 1-10, but dynamic usage and flexibility.

Pros and Cons

"Dynamic usage and flexibility in choosing configurations, and the fact that Amazon’s security team is much larger than anything I could ever assemble, gives me reliance that this run time environment is going to be more secure than anything I can deploy."

"The connection between the billing console and the management console is not obvious so shutting down a machine was hard to find initially and resulted in excess billing."

What is most valuable?

Dynamic usage and flexibility in choosing configurations. Also the fact that Amazon’s security team is much larger than anything I could ever assemble gives me reliance that this run time environment is going to be more secure than anything I can deploy.

How has it helped my organization?

I needed to stand up a prototype server that did not conform to my corporate IT standards. By using AWS I was able to stand up my prototype in a few hours, run my demo and be done.

What needs improvement?

The connection between the billing console and the management console is not obvious so shutting down a machine was hard to find initially and resulted in excess billing.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for 5 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service: Customer service was pretty good. It was responsive but it took 2-3 iterations on the billing/Management issue before they understood the problem I ran into.Technical Support: The technical support was a 7 on a scale of 1-20

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

I have used Amazon Elastic Beanstalk and Windows Azure. My primary choice to use AWS was because the prototype server stack was specified as an AMI (Amazon Machine Image).

How was the initial setup?

If you have not used AWS, its not as straightforward as it could be to choose what stack configuration a particular AMI requires before loading it. OTOH the “Amazon Web Service Pricing Calculator” is currently the gold standard for cloud vendors.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented in-house.

What was our ROI?

Not applicable, the ROI came from the agility to quickly standup the environment I needed.

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

Approximately $200/mo.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have used Azure, and Horuko.

What other advice do I have?

Use the AWS pricing calculator to understand how the services fit together.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user79092

Senior Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 3, 2014

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Great platform to spin up servers in minutes; provides multiple tools for administrators; UI can be puzzling sometimes

Pros and Cons

"Technical Support: Excellent"

"Customer Service: Could be made much better"

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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user77253

Architect at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees

Jul 28, 2014

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We have been able to leverage the agility of Amazon to work faster. AWS's customer service is ridiculously good.

Pros and Cons

"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."

"Probably customer education and awareness, especially in the Cyber Security area."

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

it_user86904

Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 23, 2014

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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user6186

Independent Analyst and Advisory Consultant at Server StorageIO - www.storageio.com

May 1, 2014

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the NetFlix Fix?

I received the following note from Amazon Web Services (AWS) about an enhancement to their Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service that can be seen by some as an enhancement to service or perhaps by others after last weeks outages, a fix or addressing a gap in their services. Note for those not aware, you can view current AWS service status portal here.

The following is the note I received from AWS.

Announcing Multiple IP Addresses for Amazon EC2 Instances in Amazon VPC
Dear Amazon EC2 Customer,

We are excited to introduce multiple IP addresses for Amazon EC2 instances in Amazon VPC. Instances in a VPC can be assigned one or more private IP addresses, each of which can be associated with its own Elastic IP address. With this feature you can host multiple websites, including SSL websites and certificates, on a single instance where each site has its own IP address. Private IP addresses and their associated Elastic IP addresses can be moved to other network interfaces or instances, assisting with application portability across instances.

The number of IP addresses that you can assign varies by instance type. Small instances can accommodate up to 8 IP addresses (across 2 elastic network interfaces) whereas High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large and Cluster Computer Eight Extra Large instances can be assigned up to 240 IP addresses (across 8 elastic network interfaces). For more information about IP address and elastic network interface limits, go to Instance Families and Types in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

You can have one Elastic IP (EIP) address associated with a running instance at no charge. If you associate additional EIPs with that instance, you will be charged $0.005/hour for each additional EIP associated with that instance per hour on a pro rata basis.

With this release we are also lowering the charge for EIP addresses not associated with running instances, from $0.01 per hour to $0.005 per hour on a pro rata basis. This price reduction is applicable to EIP addresses in both Amazon EC2 and Amazon VPC and will be applied to EIP charges incurred since July 1, 2012.
To learn more about multiple IP addresses, visit the Amazon VPC User Guide. For more information about pricing for additional Elastic IP addresses on an instance, please see Amazon EC2 Pricing.
Sincerely,

The Amazon EC2 Team

We hope you enjoyed receiving this message. If you wish to remove yourself from receiving future product announcements and the monthly AWS Newsletter, please update your communication preferences.

Amazon Web Services LLC is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon.com is a registered trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. This message produced and distributed by Amazon Web Services, LLC, 410 Terry Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

End of AWS message

Either way you look at it, AWS (disclosure I’m a paying EC2 and S3 customer) is taking responsibility on their part to do what is needed to enable a resilient, flexible, scalable data infrastructure. What I mean by that is that protecting data and access to it in cloud environments is a shared responsibility including discussing what went wrong, how to fix and prevent it, as well as communicating best practices. That is both the provider or service along with those who are using those capabilities have to take some ownership and responsibility on how they get used.

For example, last week a major thunderstorms rolled across the U.S. causing large-scale power outages along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and in particular in the Virginia area where one of Amazons availability zones (US East-1) has data centers located. Keep in mind that Amazon availability zones are made up of a collection of different physical data centers to cut or decrease chances of a single point of failure. However on June 30, 2012 during the major storms on the East coast of the U.S. something did go wrong, and as is usually the case, a chain of events resulted in or near a disaster (you can read the AWS post-mortem here).

The result is that AWS based out of the Virginia availability zone were knocked off line for a period which impacted EC2, Elastic Block Storage (EBS), Relational Database Service (RDS) and Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) capabilities for that zone. This is not the first time that the Virginia availability zone has been affected having met a disruption about a year ago. What was different about this most recent outage is that a year ago one of the marquee AWS customers NetFlix was not affected during that outage due to how they use multiple availability zones for HA. In last weeks AWS outage NetFlix customers or services were affected however not due to loss of data or systems, rather, loss of access (which to a user or consumer is the same thing). The loss of access was due to failure of elastic load balancing not being able to allow users access to other availability zones.

Consequently, if you choose to read between the lines on the above email note I received from AWS, you can either look at the new service capabilities as an enhancement, or AWS learning and improving their capabilities. Also reading between the lines you can see how some environments such as NetFlix take responsibility in how they use cloud services designing for availability, resiliency and scale with stability as opposed to simply using as a cost cutting tool.

Thus when both the provider and consumer take some responsibility for ensuring data protection and accessibility to services, there is less of a chance of service disruptions. Likewise when both parties learn from incidents or mistakes or leverage experiences, it makes for a more robust solution on a go forward basis. For those who have been around the block (or file) a few times thinking that clouds are not reliable or still immature you may have a point however think back to when your favorite or preferred platform (e.g. Mainframe, Mini, PC, client-server, iProduct, Web or other) initially appeared and teething problems or associated headaches.

IMHO AWS along with other vendors or service providers who take responsibility to publish post-mortem’s of incidents, find and fix issues, address and enhance capabilities is part of the solution for laying the groundwork for the future vs. simply playing to a near term trend theme. Likewise vendors and service providers who are reaching out and helping to educate and get their customers to take some responsibility in how they can use services for removing complexity (and cost) to enhance services as opposed to simply cutting cost and introducing risk will do better over the long run.

As I discuss in my book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), do not be scared of clouds, however be ready, do your homework, learn and understand what needs to be done or done differently. This means taking a shared responsibility one that the service provider should also be taking with you not to mention identifying new best practices, tools to be used along with conducting proof of concepts (POCs) to learn what to do and what not to do.

[To view all of the links mentioned in this post, go to: storageioblog.com/amazon-web-services-aws-and-the-netflix-fix/ ]

Some updates:

storageioblog.com/november-2013-server-storageio-update-newsletter/

storageioblog.com/fall-2013-aws-cloud-storage-compute-enhancements/

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user98079

CTO at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Mar 21, 2014

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Great for experimenting with different setups and rolling out solutions effectively but monitoring could be better

Pros and Cons

"It allows us to cheaply experiment with lots of different setups, evaluate prices and business ROI, and rollout solutions effectively."

"Monitoring could be better IMHO. We currently hack together an extra monitoring piece into the puzzle for each project."

What is most valuable?

All of them in different scenarios, hard to tell.

How has it helped my organization?

Yes. It allows us to cheaply experiment with lots of different setups, evaluate prices and business ROI, and rollout solutions effectively.

What needs improvement?

Monitoring could be better IMHO. We currently hack together an extra monitoring piece into the puzzle for each project.

For how long have I used the solution?

Since 2008

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

When the service started it had a few issues, it kept improving drastically.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Not in the past couple of years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not in the past couple of years.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service: Excellent.Technical Support: Excellent.

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

We used sporadic in-house machines, hosted services with different vendors. Reliability and ease of use were key.

How was the initial setup?

There was a learning curve, starting to work with the service, too many 3 letters in the lingo. Courses and training and books and a podcast really help.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Different cost analysis of hosted services and co-locations.

What other advice do I have?

Take it slow, there is a learning curve, but you get a return on your time for every hour you invest in learning to use this service.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user79794

Database Expert with 51-200 employees

Feb 12, 2014

Migrating to Amazon RDS

Having used AWS for a few years, there are numerous ways to get "your data" to the cloud. Usually the simplest is export/import (bias towards Oracle), but this process is usually slow when you start moving large data sets. There is the RMAN backup/recovery manager but this requires you to have the same instance version in the cloud - not good if you want to upgrade at the same time. Datapump is also available and is very useful as you can do Network data Pumps across database links - but again this can sometimes be slow.

I then looked into using Amazon's Advanced Data Migration Techniques (published Nov 13 2013) and decided to give it a go and have posted my walk through below (quite technical):

http://www.connecteddba.com/howto/MigratetoRDS.htm...

This was done from a local "data center" 100GB database, exported using datapump, copied to a M1.Xlarge EC2 in cloud and then copied further to the backend DATA_PUMP_DIR on the RDS instance (which you don't have access to). Then a datapump import into the RDS and job done - took me approx 12 hours in total (and that wasn't using Tsunami).

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user8934

Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Aug 28, 2013

Google Compute Engine vs Amazon EC2

I have been using Amazon EC2 for quite some time now and I absolutely like it. They may not be the cheapest cloud-provider and they still have some things missing, like IPv6. But they are very flexible and offer a lot of features to make it easy scaling up and down when needed. I finally took some time to enroll myself into the Google Cloud. Looking at the Compute Engine it is just like EC2 with all the same bells, whistles and terminology. The only difference I see is the amount of available images that is almost endless on Amazon and only 2 Linux distributions at Google. I am not in need of Windows images, but they seem like a big miss on Google. Pricing structure is also the same, although Amazon has a free tier for 1 year which allows you to try before you buy. Another advantage in the Amazon pricing is the ability to pay upfront and get a discount on the hourly pricing. This quick comparison does not make me want to fire up one Google instance, even for trying. Please let me know if I am missing on features that could differentiate Google Compute Engine from AWS. I might want to come back and try again.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.