Amazon AWS Reviews

The RDS renders deployment agility and there is an on-demand database-as-a-service for MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.

Among other benefits, one salient benefit for many Pythian customers is the option of spinning up a new instance whenever needed. This can be done with a few clicks.

RDS doesn't have shell access, which could be especially beneficial for Oracle databases.

I have used this solution for the past 2 years.

I have not really encountered any issues with stability.

I have not really encountered any issues with scalability.

The tech support is good and prompt.

For many of Pythian's clients, this solution is an amalgmation of on-premis and the cloud. Pythian enables its customers to reap the benefits of both worlds.

Due to Pythian's expertise and experience, the initial setup was a breeze.

Read the fine print carefully and always engage experts to carry out migration.

Having your database on RDS doesn't mean that you don't need DBA anymore. Mission critical and important databases must be handled by a DBA, even if the database resides on the cloud like RDS.

I used the solution to build clusters. We use clusters to scale resources. We can process terabytes of data daily in batch jobs and stream processing. I have approximately five terabytes of data daily being processed in batch jobs on the EMR process. We have a script that upscales the services, resources, and runs the whole computation process, and then shuts down the resources when finished. We will also use a flow as a pipeline to build the scripts in sequence. 

Additionally, my company has a lot of fraud detection solutions. We have solutions such as churn prevention, those models are now a product in AWS, and we use them. The resources and services that AWS provides are online 24 hours a day.

There are many valuable features, I find the EMR in the platform easy to use and to learn. The main services that are offered and used most often are easy to use.

Some services that are not used often have poor quality and need to be improved.

The stability is decent with the solution.

The solution is easy to scale the resources.

I rate Amazon AWS an eight out of ten.

Most of our applications are installed on the AWS. The enterprise solutions are installed on AWS.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the S3.

I have been using Amazon AWS for a couple of years.

We are using the latest version.

It's very reliable. We have not had any issues.

It's a scalable solution. We have 25 users in our organization.

We do not contact them directly. We reach out to our contractor and they contact AWS technical support.

The initial setup was very complex.

We have a reseller who helped with the deployment.

The costing model is very confusing.

The cost is on a monthly basis. 

We are happy with the pricing.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Amazon AWS a nine out of ten.

Private Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

To access systems of partner/vendor companies, we maintain an instance to transfer data to our instance, then privately back to us. Basically, a BRAS, B-RAS or BBRAS device.

It improves the speed for us to access vendors, etc. AWS is extremely slow over the internet. Where we have GigE fiber over dedicated OC48 links, and when ping times to Dallas, TX from San Francisco is 30ms RTT on average, AWS is always 20ms higher. To AWS East, it is 70-110ms RTT, and the data transfer almost seems throttled. So I spun up an instance, made a BRAS image, like how DSL customers access the internet, and set up a peer with AWS to transfer data privately, then publicly from our instance to the AWS IP of our vendor, or partner and it has improved response times dramatically. The average API access latency was 250ms, horribly slow - already authenticated, etc. 

We also use it for our Amazon Seller Account and Amazon Vendor Account, where Amazon's systems run. Amazon recently moved their systems to CloudFront, but AWS DNS is awful slow. So the BRAS helps with the DNS as well.

Bidding on instances with dynamic pricing. So, I can do something that is not critical in terms of speed, like a production system, but testing and bid at an uber low price, and I will usually get what I want.

The network is way overloaded. Comcast is overloaded. So between the two, it sucks.

I am used to Level (3) or Verizon/Alter.net AS701 with fabulous ping times and throughput, where I click something and it works. 

It is the problem with the nomenclature of SDN [software defined networking] as engineers today do not understand networking, TCP/IP, or anything. I was 18 during the .com bust, but I remember accessing tools, as I worked for a Global ISP NTT, which owned Verio, the largest webhost at the time. We had Dual OC-3's to our office, when our office was just a remote NOC, but we had cloud computing before it was nomenclature. We accessed customer data, and had tools to do things quickly, instead of logging into routers, IDS, IPS, switches, and server. If it was a repetitive task, it would be via a browser, and the browser accessed a txn server rather than run cron jobs every 15 minutes. I will say that AWS for API, or Seller Central, is no improvement from what we had (our internal tools we designed to update accounts, change customer network profiles, monitoring, MRTG graphs, etc), when AWS should be blazing. 

Accessing apps on AWS via my iPhone is awful. Apple is behind the times in speed, battery, and even the screen, but it is aesthetically pleasing, so it wins. Android devices by Samsung are superior, but I use iPhone because that is what we use in Silicon Valley, which is on Verizon's LTE Advanced (LTE-X is their coined term) network, and the latency is great, 20-30ms, speeds of 40 Megabits/s, symmetrical are quite common, and sometimes I see 150/150 Megabits/s.  

More than five years.

When they first moved Amazon Seller Central to AWS CloudFront from AWS, I would see connections to Hong Kong and Singapore. Maybe I was sent there because the USA East was overloaded. I do not know. So, we started using Verisign for recursive DNS, and to host our own domain name(s), and I noticed, it fixed the problem. Every ISP and DNS server, either Unicast like Level(3) 4.2.2.1-4.2.2.6, Google 8.8.8.8, NTT was the best performer 129.250.35.250/251, Comcast was garbage, while on Comcast network 75.75.75.75, Verizon was good (FiOS [consumer and SMB], and Enterprise which is what we have aka MCI aka UUNET/Alter.net AS701/AS702/AS703), and SprintLink AS1239 was good.  However, we just tested Sprint, and Verizon. Verizon provides backup services for us, actually tertiary, we provide our own secondary.  So I signed us up with Verisign with DDoS protection, made Verizon secondary, and the feed server from us, feeds VeriSign and Verizon. That fixed the AWS CloudFront location issue, which to me, shows how poor AWS DNS is.

We would get responses that are AWS Hong Kong, even when they moved to CloudFront to speed up Seller Central (I complained to corporate via a letter FedEx'ed to Amazon). I asked for a private MPLS link, which we would pay for, and we were told it would be worked on. During peak times, it would lag and time out, it was awful. It still lags, but I route as much as we can via the BRAS setup. 

I have pushed clients towards Microsoft Azure. I have bugged Microsoft to add links to their network in the BNA region, BNA to Atlanta (additional link), BNA to MCI aka Kansas City, BNA to Chicago, BNA to WDC, and BNA to Dallas, TX to improve access for things at BNA. It is not critical. It is just the only facility that is 30ms slower than others. Azure in Chicago, Wyoming, Bellevue, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, or Texas is very low latency. 

I have also pushed clients to IBM Bluemix, as their partnership with Akamai makes API access is really fast. Azure with Verizon CDN/Terremark is fabulous.

I have to add this. AWS sucks, even though I am a customer.

Quick to set up, dynamic pricing, very good support.

Pricy for dedicated servers. The base package for fast bandwidth was more than I anticipated paying.

They have a package where you pay an upfront cost and get locked in for a year, but the monthly cost (or per-hour cost) is much lower. Try this out if you know you'll be with them for at least a year.

Our primary use case for Amazon AWS is for disaster recovery.

The interface of the solution is good.

I have been using Amazon AWS for approximately one year.

Amazon AWS is a stable solution.

We have three customers using this solution.

The setup was straightforward.

The solution is on a subscription-based model, and it is pay-as-you-go. The price could be cheaper.

Amazon AWS is a good solution.

I rate Amazon AWS a nine out of ten.

Public Cloud

The primary use case is that we run all our IT on it. The performance has been okay so far.

With the pay-as-you-go model, we don't have to predict future IT needs. We can just scale up as we want. That helps with a lot of agility in deploying stuff in our IT infrastructure.

• It's pay-as-you-go.
• It has a breadth of solutions for databases, data mining, AI.
• They release new solutions almost every quarter and you don't get that kind of innovation from an enterprise company.

The AWS documentation is written in a way that is not very intuitive. That's an area they can improve.

One to three years.

Stability is really good. We have not had downtime so far.

Ours is a new company and we decided to go with AWS right from the beginning.

The most important criterion when selecting a vendor is their ability to help us get started as soon as we can. From the time we decide to deploy something to the time when the application is deployed, we look at which vendor will help us reduce that time.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I think the pricing becomes a problem as the IT organization grows. They need to give better pricing when companies grow.

We looked at all the cloud platforms. AWS had more breadth in the services they offered.

Look for what is required to deploy the apps in your particular organization. For example, if it's AI-driven then probably Google is a better cloud to go after. If there are a lot of Microsoft applications or if developers or the IT staff were trained in Microsoft software, then Microsoft Azure is a better fit.

I would rate AWS an eight out of 10 because it helps companies get started fast.

AWS's innovations are incredible.

You can migrate complex environments to AWS Cloud reducing costs, improving performance and scalability.

I have used AWS for five years.

Yes, every platform has problems, but they are very fast at solving the problems.

Yes, every platform has problems, but they are very fast and they are always working to improve.

No, I never encountered any issues with scalability.

Customer Service:

Their priority is the customers.

Technical Support:

The technical support is the best.

No. I tried to use Azure, but I can't.

Yes, the initial setup is not so straightforward. The concept changes and you will need to understand this.