Summary: Basics of AWS Services

In this chapter, we have familiarized ourselves with the most important services that we'll later use in AWS Step Functions.

AWS account setup

We learned how to set up an AWS account and how to log in to it. In addition, we learned about the free tier. The free tier is available to new AWS accounts and provides free access to AWS services for 12 months after signup. After 12 months, standard pricing applies for the services used.

AWS region

The region represents a specific geographical area where AWS has data centers and infrastructure to provide cloud services. Each region consists of multiple, isolated, and physically separate data centers known as Availability Zones (AZs). This design ensures fault tolerance, redundancy, and low-latency access to services for users within that geographical area.

AWS Lambda

• Lambda is a serverless computing service, meaning we don't need to manage any servers or infrastructure.

• We only pay for the computing time our function uses, without any upfront commitments or long-term contracts.

• It automatically scales our functions in response to incoming requests or events.

• It supports multiple programming languages, allowing us to use our preferred language for writing our functions.

• It easily integrates with other AWS services.

Amazon CloudWatch

CloudWatch continuously monitors our AWS resources, gathering data on various performance metrics and operational health. This data is then made available to us in the form of detailed graphs, dashboards, and reports, giving us a comprehensive view of our resources' performance and health.

Amazon S3

Amazon S3 is a highly scalable and durable object storage service that allows developers to store and retrieve large amounts of data, such as images, videos, and documents. It simplifies the process of building storage-intensive applications by providing features like versioning.

AWS API Gateway

• API Gateway makes it easy for developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) at any scale.

• It acts as a front door for our APIs, allowing us to define how requests to our APIs should be handled and enabling us to create custom RESTful or HTTP APIs that can be accessed by clients such as web or mobile applications.

• It provides features like caching, logging, security, and integration with other AWS services like AWS Lambda, making it a powerful and flexible solution for managing APIs in the AWS ecosystem.

Amazon DynamoDB

• Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. It is designed to handle large amounts of data and traffic, making it a great choice for serverless applications.

• DynamoDB supports key-value and document data structures and provides low-latency read and write operations, automatic scaling, and strong durability and consistency. It also integrates well with other AWS services, making it a popular choice for developers building applications in the AWS ecosystem.