SAP Architect at Deloitte
Real User
Top 10
A stable tool with auto-scaling functionality, but lacking in system configuration documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "We like the that, within the public subnet of this solution, a new instance of the tool is launched when it detects an issue, in order to prevent interruptions in performance."
  • "We would like the system documentation for configuring this solution to be improved, in order to provide better process clarity."

What is most valuable?

We like the that, within the public subnet of this solution, a new instance of the tool is launched when it detects an issue, in order to prevent interruptions in performance.

What needs improvement?

We would like the system documentation for configuring this solution to be improved, in order to provide better process clarity.

Similarly, we would like more templates to be available to download for performance-oriented architecture, so that we can re-purpose them for our environment.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with this solution for the last five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have found this to be a stable solution.

Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
March 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution allows for easy auto-scaling.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for this solution is straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution a nine 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?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager (Engineering Department) at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Easy to use, multiple payment options, and highly reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are ease of use, deployment, and short lead time. If you are using an on-premise solution, you need to wait for the hardware, and nowadays it is very difficult, the lead time becomes very long. We propose to our customers to use Amazon AWS because it is very easy, no need to wait for hardware delivery."
  • "If Amazon AWS can offer more self-paced learning tools, on their website, on CBT, it'll be easier for more people to familiarize themselves with their service. Especially when they are delivering new services from time to time. Educational tools that can help users familiarize themselves with their service. It would be great."

What is our primary use case?

The customer can deploy their application on Amazon AWS instead of taking care of their infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Amazon AWS are ease of use, deployment, and short lead time. If you are using an on-premise solution, you need to wait for the hardware, and nowadays it is very difficult, the lead time becomes very long. We propose to our customers to use Amazon AWS because it is very easy, no need to wait for hardware delivery.

What needs improvement?

If Amazon AWS can offer more self-paced learning tools, on their website, on CBT,  it'll be easier for more people to familiarize themselves with their service. Especially when they are delivering new services from time to time. Educational tools that can help users familiarize themselves with their service. It would be great.

I know they have a Free Tier service, but they need to register their credit cards. Some of my colleagues have concerns. If the usage exceeds a certain value, they exceeded the Free Tier usage time and they will start charging your credit card. My colleagues forgot about the usage and credit card payments. They needed to pay for the additional amounts which they used on top of the Free Tier usage. If Amazon AWS could improve the free service model to be more user-friendly in a way of not using a credit card, that would be great.

For personal learning, you also need to register your credit card. You need to be careful or you will have to pay.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for approximately two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is stable. However, they have had a few outages but nothing very serious.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is quite scalable. And they have a lot of auto-scaling functions for their VMs.

How are customer service and support?

I don't have direct information of the support from Amazon AWS because sometimes we are relying on Amazon's partner, not directly contacting Amazon AWS support teams. We need to have some support plan with Amazon AWS, otherwise, they will not provide direct email or technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The length of time and difficulty of the implementation depends on the scale and the complexity of the project.

What about the implementation team?

For the implementation of Amazon AWS, having two to three engineers focusing on it would be ideal. Small to middle size companies, don't have dedicated teams or engineers for a particular service.

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

Amazon AWS is offering different pricing, and saving plans, it's very easy for a customer to consider the Amazon AWS service.

Amazon AWS charges based on the user usage and some software license, such as the OS are included in their monthly charge. The transparency is quite sufficient, the customer knows what they're paying for.

The usage fees are an OPEX and they are offered monthly or annually.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have evaluated Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Amazon AWS to others.

Amazon AWS are the market leaders in the public cloud service and after them, we have Microsoft Azure, and maybe Google Cloud.

I rate Amazon AWS an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Amazon AWS
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Amazon AWS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Principal Consultant at High Sierra Consultants
Consultant
Good elasticity, good performance, and reasonable price
Pros and Cons
  • "Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service."
  • "One thing that Azure offers that I think is good is Migrate appliance. So, Azure has a migrate appliance that allows you to run against workloads to determine the cost, preparedness, and scalability. I haven't found a similar feature in AWS. That kind of service would be great on AWS too if you could point it to the data center."

What is our primary use case?

I am using it for enterprise warehousing. I am using it for web development, data warehousing, and also for building apps.

I am using its latest version. In terms of deployment, it is a platform as a service.

What is most valuable?

Macie is great. It is a service that makes recommendations on a data layer for cybersecurity. It is a great service.

Its elasticity is good, and I haven't come across any problems with it. So far, everything has been good.

What needs improvement?

One thing that Azure offers that I think is good is Migrate appliance. So, Azure has a migrate appliance that allows you to run against workloads to determine the cost, preparedness, and scalability. I haven't found a similar feature in AWS. That kind of service would be great on AWS too if you could point it to the data center.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for well over five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any performance issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy to scale. Its elasticity is good. If you want to scale up or down, you can. You can scale out. There is no problem at all. That's one of the features that I like about it.

We have less than 50 people who are using this solution.

How are customer service and support?

I've not used their tech support yet.

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

We didn't use a different solution previously. They're the first.

How was the initial setup?

You need to know what you're doing. I know they're trying to make it easy. Some things are easy. Some things you have to know what you're doing.

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

It seems to be reasonable. It's the first one that I've used as a cloud platform, so they've set the benchmark for me, and now, I'm comparing everything else to them.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to just plan out what they are looking for in terms of use cases. 

I would rate Amazon AWS an eight out of 10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Manager, Technology at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
MSP
Extremely cost-efficient, easy to upgrade and expand storage with greatly improved interfaces
Pros and Cons
  • "Easy to upgrade, easy to expand storage and change your EC2 types."
  • "IAM only gives you one chance to capture your key."

What is our primary use case?

General use cases of AWS are for those needing a managed cloud instance without the bulk costs for a legacy server. We are customers of Amazon and I'm the technology manager. 

How has it helped my organization?

The benefit to the company is immense financial savings and the fact that you're able to see your monthly costs before buying anything. The AWS monthly calculator enables you to select your database, servers, volumes, and see how much everything will cost on a monthly basis. You can figure out what you'll be paying, so it enables a comparison; it's usually a third to half the cost of using an on-prem system.

What is most valuable?

Amazon is easy to upgrade, easy to expand storage and change your EC2 types. Each of those things usually takes at most five minutes to do, whereas on a legacy system you have to actually buy a new system or new hardware and have downtime for installation. Even then it may not be configured the same way and you might end up with a widespread outage. The advantage of using AWS is that all the testing's been done so you have proof that it works. We still do a cursory check, but they don't put anything out there that hasn't been vetted. Plus all the Atlassian tools are on AWS as well. The cloud instances they provide have a very robust network because there are over 160,000 companies that use the tools. Backups are really easy to access as are the automated backups of the VMs and the volumes. We're able to create a new volume from a backup in about two minutes, attach it to the server and view the data side by side to compare the old to the new. It takes 10 minutes total to get all the access needed.

I've had very positive experiences with AWS and it's gotten a lot better over time with their improved interfaces. Everything's all interconnected now and within its own framework. We pull in other tools to the OS such as Docker but AWS provides tools like Yum that enable quick installation of things. It's typically part of the OS. 

What needs improvement?

While the IAM security key is very secure, they only give you one chance to capture your key. If I'm already logged in and have an email address online, it would be better if it were sent in an encrypted manner to email so that you don't lose the key. I might create the IAM and then perhaps forget to capture it off the screen and then when I do need it, I realize I don't have it and have to create another profile.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for about 12 years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't had any problem with stability. We do multiple zone backups and multiple zone data and we haven't had any problems or slowdowns. We've had dealings with countries like India, where things are generally slower but with AWS there haven't been any issues. There's no wait time.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good. I like the EFS expandable storage because it expands and contracts, you don't have to do anything with it and it's really inexpensive. Somebody may use it for temporary storage where they drop a terabyte of data that they need to give to a customer and then it shrinks back down when they're done with it. It expands and contracts as needed and that's also reflected in the cost.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is very fast, very efficient and very knowledgeable. Even when I've asked questions and they didn't know the answers, they were able to find someone within 15 minutes that was able to help.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The main thing is getting the security protocols set up in the proper order, otherwise it won't work. You have to go in and set up the main group and make sure to share it to your database. They've improved their documentation and it's a lot better but still lacks a little in some areas. If you've deployed before, setup takes a couple of hours, otherwise it might take up to a day. It's a lot faster on cloud; if you're working on-prem you have to jump through a lot of hoops because each team has its own security. 

They have scripting tools on AWS which allow you to set up your framework and you can use it as a template. We use an AWS architect for implementation and to make sure all the security is set up. And then we have a DevOps team that manages the OS updates. That's a team of three handling over 100 servers, VMs basically. Once a month they do the non-production patching with the production patching the following week. 

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

Licensing fees are only applicable if you're using Red Hat or an Oracle database. You have to pay for both of those. If you're using Postgres or MySQL, there are no costs for the actual database application. There are no fees for individuals using Oracle Java, but businesses pay a license. We use an OpenJDK that is vetted by Atlassian so if you don't want to buy Java you can use the OpenJDK.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to do some homework, read as much as you can about the setup before you dive in. If you take an hour to review the setup and then put together your own process so you know all the steps required and you use a checklist, it simplifies things. Have some kind of system, whether it's a spreadsheet or a Confluence page where you're documenting the steps and keeping track of where you're at. 

Whenever I'm asked to do something, I can find a tool on AWS that I can vet for our customers, and for that reason, I rate Amazon AWS 10 out of 10. 

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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Product Owner for AWS and DevOps at Sunlight Financial
Real User
Stable and priced well, but technical support needs to be more proactive
Pros and Cons
  • "Amazon AWS is very stable."
  • "They should implement the command shell by default. As it is now, to open the console, you have to download the command application."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution in our company and for our clients' companies.

What is most valuable?

I like the IAM, the directory, and the storage.

What needs improvement?

They should implement the command shell by default. As it is now, to open the console, you have to download the command application. When you compare with GCP, they have the command shell inbuilt.

It would make it more seamless for the administrator to include this. There are times where the machine is not connecting and you can't wait for the RDP because you have to create them quickly.

Building a shell directly from the console is a good solution. This is missing by default. there are ways that it can be done and integrated.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Amazon AWS for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon AWS is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution, but you can only scale-out. You can't scale up.

We have approximately 200 users in our company who are using it.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support could be improved, they could be better. We don't get SLA with AWS.

They give us a specific time for a solution but they don't advise further. We have to check to see if the issue has been resolved. There should be an automatic email to notify us that the issue has been resolved, by default.

The need to work on proactiveness.

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

I also work with GCP and with Azure.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. It is not complex.

We have a team of 50 people who maintain all of our solutions. It's spread across the team to run 24/7.

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

The pricing is one of the best in the segment.

They have actually reduced their prices, with the exception of the MLD which has increased.

It's by design itself.

They have placed the pricing well for a reduced market.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Amazon AWS a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Sr Solution Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Priced competitively, reliable, but difficult figuring out usage cost
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution is stable and reliable."
  • "We have had some difficulty figuring out how to monitor how many EC2 instances have been networked into our entire enterprise. We usually try to create a diagram outside of AWS. The types of information we are trying to determine are, for example, what hardware devices are interconnected, and when was the interconnection made."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution predominately to reduce the amount of effort we need to migrate to the cloud. 

What is most valuable?


What needs improvement?

We have had some difficulty figuring out how to monitor how many EC2 instances have been networked into our entire enterprise. We usually try to create a diagram outside of AWS. The types of information we are trying to determine are, for example, what hardware devices are interconnected, and when was the interconnection made.

It is difficult to extrapolate budgeting costs and schedules from the information gathered from the usage of the solution in our systems. We are given a large lump sum of money at the beginning of the year for our budget but it is hard to summarize costs to put down on paper for justification or projections.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for approximately one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable and reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are planning on moving more of our systems to the cloud. Currently, we have approximately 60% of our applications on the cloud.

How was the initial setup?

Our developers found the installation a moderate level of difficulty, there was not anything that was complex. It is helpful to have some tutorials to follow.

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

The solution is on a pay-as-use pricing model. The price of the solution could always be better but it is priced competitively.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have evaluated Lambda, and in some cases, it might be a better option than EC2. However, we have decided to go with EC2 because it is closer to a drop-in displacement which works better with our applications, for example, Spring Boot and other similar variations.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others is EC2 has its specific use case needs like other solutions, such as Lamda. If you have the need for a specific use case this solution could be the right choice. For example, it is possible to have your monolithic application on the cloud and decompose it into your microservice architecture or use it with Lambda capabilities. You can do this and have a high percentage of your application on the cloud. However, you need to be sure it is the right choice, it is something you need to be careful of.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Amazon AWS a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Derek Smith - PeerSpot reviewer
Development and Release Compliance Officer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5
Reliable with good monitoring but the UI needs to be better
Pros and Cons
  • "The monitoring is the most valuable aspect of the product."
  • "The interface needs a bit of work. It's not intuitive."

What is our primary use case?

We do have quite a lot of AWS deployments and clients in certain countries.

We use it for spinning up environments, using infrastructure as code. We use it for disaster recovery and high availability for creating BMs for testing. Mainly on the service side, we use it for setting up environments and spinning up environments.

What is most valuable?

The monitoring is the most valuable aspect of the product.

Technical support is available if you need it.

The solution is stable.

The scalability is okay. It's similar to what you would get with Azure. 

What needs improvement?

The interface needs a bit of work. It's not intuitive.

The solution's initial setup can be complex. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using AWS for about 15 years. It's been a very long time. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is fine. I haven't had issues with crashing or bugs or glitches. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution's scalability is pretty good. These solutions are pretty well known for not being able to scale well. They behave very differently at scale. I wouldn't say it's any better or worse than Azure is; it's probably on par.

Internally, we have about 500 people using the solution right now. 

How are customer service and support?

I have never used technical support myself, although it's my understanding that our team does from time to time. We do all the first line ourselves. Anything that escalates to the third line, we have contracts in place to help us get assistance.

How was the initial setup?

I found the initial setup to be pretty complex. It's just getting more and more complex, with the infrastructure as CodePipelines and that sort of thing. On a scale of one to five, one being the worst and five being the best in terms of complexity, I'd say it's a three.

I have no idea what the operational side does in terms of maintenance. It's not an aspect that falls under my responsibilities. 

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

I don't handle the licensing side of things and therefore cannot comment on the price of the solution.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at Azure DevOps.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a customer and an end-user.

We use various deployments, including on-premises, public, private, and hybrid clouds. The deployment is dependent on the customer, the solution, and the service level agreements that we have. We use all of those models. We make our choice based on the requirement.

I'd advise potential new users to actually do a shootout between the different products based on your use case and choose the right one.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten. I'd rate it higher, however, the UI needs improvement first.

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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Fed Yunis Zapata - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Solutions Architect at Canvia
Real User
Top 10
Control Tower enables us to organize the different accounts our clients have
Pros and Cons
  • "It's a very flexible and customizable service"
  • "Monthly costs can be high if you don't maintain your usage"

What is our primary use case?

All of our clients look to migrate their workloads to the cloud and we propose the use of AWS depending on the technology of the client or the workload they want to migrate. Our primary use cases are workloadmigrations, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), sometimes platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). We use different AWS services, Elastic cloud compute, Web application firewall, AWS firewall, LAMBDA, CloudTrail, and others.

What is most valuable?

AWS has a lot of services that are very good. One of the services I use is AWS Transit Gateway. This service allows me to communicate between different networks in different accounts. It's good for network communication. The other service I use a lot of is "Control Tower", it's a service used to organize the different accounts our clients have.

What needs improvement?

With regards to improving the service, I don't see any room for improvement at this time. I love the technology, it is a very good public cloud offering with very good services. Until now, there are no services that I don't like.
One other aspect, it would be good to see the basic service level improved with regards to response time. They don't offer 24-hour support. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon AWS for around two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

AWS is very stable. They have an SLA of 99.99%.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

AWS is very scalable.

How are customer service and support?

My experience with AWS support is very good. There are four types of support: basic, free, business and premium. It depends on the level of support you have which determines how quickly they can respond about an incident, ticket or request you have. 

How was the initial setup?

It's very easy to set up services in AWS. Depending on the solution you need to deploy it can be very quick. A virtual machine can be deployed in 5 minutes. 

What about the implementation team?

Our company is a partner with Amazon, we implement in-house. 

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

What is hard with the public cloud service like AWS, is ensuring you maintain a good budget. Plan the monthly consumption properly. If you don't have the expertise in the cloud, your monthly cost can go very high. It's also very easy to set up services in AWS.

I would also suggest companies look for a good partner that has the necessary experience to deploy the services when moving to the cloud. It's very simple, but you need to design a very good architecture for cost optimization and performance.  

What other advice do I have?

The solution is good for integration. It's very flexible and customizable with other services, public, cloud and on-premise.

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 has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon AWS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.