AWS Core Services: A Client Overview
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud platform with over 200 services. Understanding which services we use and why helps you understand your hosting architecture and what you are paying for.
Compute
- EC2: Virtual machines — the foundational compute service. We use EC2 for workloads that need dedicated server capacity.
- ECS / Fargate: Container hosting. Fargate is serverless container execution — no server management, pay per task.
- Lambda: Serverless functions — event-driven compute that scales from zero. Used for background tasks, event processing, and API backends.
Database
- RDS: Managed relational databases — PostgreSQL, MySQL, and others. Automated backups, failover, patching.
- Aurora: AWS's high-performance relational database — PostgreSQL and MySQL compatible, significantly faster than standard RDS for many workloads.
- ElastiCache: Managed Redis and Memcached — used for caching and session storage.
- DynamoDB: Serverless NoSQL key-value database — millisecond latency at any scale.
Storage and Networking
- S3: Object storage — images, files, backups, static assets
- CloudFront: CDN — content delivery with edge caching
- VPC: Virtual private cloud — isolated network environment
- Route 53: DNS management and domain registration
- ALB (Application Load Balancer): Layer 7 load balancing with path routing