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AWS Case Studies: Services and Benefits in 2024

Home Blog Cloud Computing AWS Case Studies: Services and Benefits in 2024

With its extensive range of cloud services, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has completely changed the way businesses run. Organisations demonstrate how AWS has revolutionized their operations by enabling scalability, cost-efficiency, and innovation through many case studies. AWS's computing power, storage, database management, and artificial intelligence technologies have benefited businesses of all sizes, from startups to multinational corporations. These include improved security, agility, worldwide reach, and lower infrastructure costs. With Amazon AWS educate program it helps businesses in various industries to increase growth, enhance workflow, and maintain their competitiveness in today's ever-changing digital landscape. So, let's discuss the AWS cloud migration case study   and its importance in getting a better understanding of the topic in detail.

What are AWS Case Studies, and Why are They Important?

The   AWS case   studies comprehensively explain how companies or organizations have used Amazon Web Services (AWS) to solve problems, boost productivity, and accomplish objectives. These studies provide real-life scenarios of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in operation, showcasing the wide range of sectors and use cases in which AWS can be successfully implemented. They offer vital lessons and inspiration for anyone considering or already using AWS by providing insights into the tactics, solutions, and best practices businesses use the AWS Cloud Engineer program . The Amazon ec2 case study   is crucial since it provides S's capabilities, assisting prospective clients in comprehending the valuable advantages and showcasing AWS's dependability, scalability, and affordability in fostering corporate innovation and expansion.

What are the Services Provided by AWS, and What are its Use Cases?

The   case study on AWS in Cloud Computing provided and its use cases mentioned:

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Use Cases

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) enables you to quickly spin up virtual computers with no initial expenditure and no need for a significant hardware investment. Use the AWS admin console or automation scripts to provision new servers for testing and production environments promptly and shut them down when not in use.

AWS EC2 use cases consist of:

• With options for load balancing and auto-scaling, create a fault-tolerant architecture.
• Select EC2 accelerated computing instances if you require a lot of processing power and GPU capability for deep learning and machine learning.

Relational Database Service (RDS) Use Cases

Since Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a managed database service, it alleviates the stress associated with maintaining, administering, and other database-related responsibilities.

AWS RDS uses common cases, including:

• Without additional overhead or staff expenditures, a new database server can be deployed in minutes and significantly elevate dependability and uptime. It is the perfect fit for complex daily database requirements that are OLTP/transactional.
• RDS should be utilized with NoSQL databases like Amazon OpenSearch Service (for text and unstructured data) and DynamoDB (for low-latency/high-traffic use cases).

AWS Workspaces

AWS offers Amazon Workspaces, a fully managed, persistent desktop virtualization service, to help remote workers and give businesses access to virtual desktops within the cloud. With it, users can access the data, apps, and resources they require from any supported device, anywhere, at any time.

AWS workspaces use cases

• IT can set up and manage access fast. With the web filter, you can allow outgoing traffic from a Workspace to reach your chosen internal sites.
• Some companies can work without physical offices and rely solely on SaaS apps. Thus, there is no on-premises infrastructure. They use cloud-based desktops via AWS Workspaces and other services in these situations.

AWS Case Studies

Now, we'll be discussing different case studies of AWS, which are mentioned below: -

Case Study - 1: Modern Web Application Platform with AWS

American Public Media, the programming section of Minnesota Public Radio, is one of the world's biggest producers and distributors of public television. To host their podcast, streaming music, and news websites on AWS, they worked to develop a proof of concept.

After reviewing an outdated active-passive disaster recovery plan, MPR decided to upgrade to a cloud infrastructure to modernize its apps and methodology. This infrastructure would need to be adaptable to changes within the technology powering their apps, scalable to accommodate their audience growth, and resilient to support their disaster recovery strategy.

MPR and AWS determined that MPR News and the public podcast websites should be hosted on the new infrastructure to show off AWS as a feasible choice. Furthermore, AWS must host multiple administrative apps to demonstrate its private cloud capabilities. These applications would be an image manager, a schedule editor, and a configuration manager.

To do this, AWS helped MPR set up an EKS Kubernetes cluster . The apps would be able to grow automatically according to workload and traffic due to the cluster. AWS and MPR developed Elasticsearch at Elastic.co and a MySQL instance in RDS to hold application data.

Business Benefits

Considerable cost savings were made possible by the upgraded infrastructure. Fewer servers would need to be acquired for these vital applications due to the decrease in hardware requirements. Additionally, switching to AWS made switching from Akamai CDN to CloudFront simple. This action reduced MPR's yearly expenses by thousands.

Case Study - 2: Platform Modernisation to Deploy to AWS

Foodsby was able to proceed with its expansion goals after receiving a $6 million investment in 2017, but it still needed to modernize its mobile and web applications. For a faster time to launch to AWS, they improved and enhanced their web, iOS, and Android applications.

Sunsetting technology put this project on a surged timeline. Selecting the mobile application platform required serious analysis and expert advice to establish consensus across internal stakeholders.

Improving the creation of front-end and back-end web apps that separated them into microservices to enable AWS hosting, maximizing scalability. Strengthening recommended full Native for iOS and Android and quickly creating and implementing that solution.

Case Study - 3: Cloud Platform with Kubernetes

SPS Commerce hired AWS to assist them with developing a more secure cloud platform, expanding their cloud deployment choices through Kubernetes, and educating their engineers on these advanced technologies.

SPS serves over 90,000 retail, distribution, grocery, and e-commerce businesses. However, to maintain its growth, SPS needs to remove obstacles to deploying new applications on AWS and other cloud providers in the future. They wanted a partner to teach their internal development team DevOps principles and reveal them to Kubernetes best practices, even though they knew Kubernetes would help them achieve this.

To speed up new project cycle times, decrease ramp-up times, and improve the team's Kubernetes proficiency, it assisted with developing a multi-team, Kubernetes-based platform with a uniform development method. The standards for development and deployment and assisted them in establishing the deployment pipeline.

Most teams can plug, play, and get code up and running quickly due to the streamlined deployment interface. SPS Commerce benefits from Kubernetes' flexibility and can avoid vendor lock-in, which they require to switch cloud providers.

Case Study - 4: Using Unified Payment Solutions to Simplify Government Services

The customer, who had a portfolio of firms within its authority, needed to improve experience to overcome the difficulty of combining many payment methods into a single, unified solution.

Due to the customers' varied acquisitions, the payment system landscape became fragmented, making it more difficult for clients to make payments throughout a range of platforms as well as technologies. Providing a streamlined payment experience could have been improved by this lack of coherence and standardization.

It started developing a single, cloud-based payment system that complies with the customers' microservices-based reference design. CRUD services were created after the user interface for client administration was set at the beginning of the project.

With this, the customer can streamline operations and increase efficiency by providing a smooth payment experience.

The new system demonstrated a tremendous improvement over the old capability, demonstrating the ability to handle thousands of transactions per second.

Maintaining system consistency and facilitating scalability and maintenance were made more accessible by aligning with the reference architecture.

Case Study - 5: Accelerated Data Migration to AWS

They selected improvements to create   an   AWS cloud migration case study cloud platform to safely transfer their data from a managed service provider to AWS during the early phases of a worldwide pandemic.

Early in 2020, COVID-19 was discovered, and telemedicine services were used to lessen the strain on hospital infrastructure. The number of telehealth web queries increased dramatically overnight, from 5,000 to 40,000 per minute. Through improvement, Zipnosis was able to change direction and reduce the duration of its AWS migration plan from six to three months. The AWS architecture case study includes HIPAA, SOC2, and HITRUST certification requirements. They also wanted to move their historic database smoothly across several web-facing applications while adhering to service level agreements (SLAs), which limited downtime.

Using Terraform and Elastic Kubernetes Service, the AWS platform creates a modern, infrastructure-as-code, HIPAA-compliant, and HITRUST-certified environment. With the help of serverless components, tools were developed to roll out an Application Envelope, enabling the creation of a HIPAA-compliant environment that could be activated quickly.

Currently, Zipnosis has internal platform management. Now that there is more flexibility, scaling up and down is more affordable and accessible. Their services are more marketable to potential clients because of their scalable, secure, and efficient infrastructure. Their use of modern technologies, such as Kubernetes on Amazon EKS, simplifies hiring top people. Zipnosis is in an excellent position to move forward.

Case Study - 6: Transforming Healthcare Staffing

The customer's outdated application presented difficulties. It was based on the outdated DBROCKET platform and needed an intuitive user interface, testing tools, and extensibility. Modernizing the application was improving the job and giving the customer an improved, scalable, and maintainable solution.

Although the customer's old application was crucial for predicting hospital staffing needs, maintenance, and improvements were challenging due to its reliance on the obscure DBROCKET platform. Hospitals lost money on inefficient staff scheduling due to the application's lack of responsiveness and a mobile-friendly interface.

Choosing Spring Boot and Groovy for back-end development to offer better maintainability and extensibility throughout the improved migration of the application from DBROCKET to a new technology stack. Unit tests were used to increase the reliability and standard of the code.

Efficiency at Catalis increased dramatically when the advanced document redaction technology was put in place. They were able to process papers at a significantly higher rate because the automated procedure cut down the time and effort needed for manual redaction.

Catalis cut infrastructure costs by utilizing serverless architecture and cloud-based services. They saved a significant amount of money because they were no longer required to upgrade and maintain on-premises servers.

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Finally,   a   case study of   AWS retail case studies offers a range of features and advantages. These studies show how firms in various industries use AWS for innovation and growth, from scalability to cost efficiency. AWS offers a robust infrastructure and a range of technologies to satisfy changing business needs, whether related to improving customer experiences with cloud-based solutions or streamlining processes using AI and machine learning. These case studies provide substantial proof of AWS's influence on digital transformation and the success of organizations.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

From the case study of Amazon web services, companies can learn how other businesses use AWS services to solve real-world problems, increase productivity, cut expenses, and innovate. For those looking to optimize their cloud strategy and operations, these case studies provide insightful information, optimal methodologies, and purpose. 

You can obtain case studies on AWS through the AWS website, which has a special section with a large selection of case studies from different industries. In addition, AWS releases updated case studies regularly via various marketing platforms and on its blog.

The case study of Amazon web services, which offers specific instances of how AWS services have been successfully applied in various settings, can significantly assist in the decision-making process for IT initiatives. Project planning and strategy can be informed by the insights, best practices, and possible solutions these case studies provide.

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Kingson Jebaraj is a highly respected technology professional, recognized as both a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and an Alibaba Most Valuable Professional. With a wealth of experience in cloud computing, Kingson has collaborated with renowned companies like Microsoft, Reliance Telco, Novartis, Pacific Controls UAE, Alibaba Cloud, and G42 UAE. He specializes in architecting innovative solutions using emerging technologies, including cloud and edge computing, digital transformation, IoT, and programming languages like C, C++, Python, and NLP. 

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Universities Achieve Important Research Advancements With Amazon Web Services

Universities work through Internet2 NET+ to remove cloud computing cost constraints and administrative burdens to enhance scientific collaboration and application development.

Solution Summary

Amazon Web Services (AWS) entered the NET+ program in 2014 — undergoing the rigorous, community-led service-validation process which allows institutions to form a collective voice in working with industry cloud providers to customize and enhance their service for higher education institutions and the extended community. After the service validation provided several key service enhancements for higher education, Internet2 community practitioners formed a Service Advisory Board to address evolving data transfer and administrative issues that were barriers to more ubiquitous use of the service for institutions, researchers and application developers. 

Collaborators

• University of Virginia (Sponsor)
• Cornell University
• Indiana University
• University of Chicago
• University of Iowa
• Amazon Web Services
• DLT Solutions (Program Reseller)

Products & Services

• NET+ Amazon Web Services
• Internet2 Cloud Connect
• Internet2 Network
• InCommon Federation

Community Resources

• Internet2 NET+ Program
• NET+AWS Service Advisory Board

The Project

The ability for the research and education (R&E) community to leverage a collective voice and have regular, ongoing dialogue with leading cloud service providers for the specialized needs of the academic enterprise, has always been at the heart of the Internet2 NET+ program. Amazon Web Services (AWS) entered the NET+ program in 2014 — undergoing the rigorous, community-led NET+ Service Validation process that works with industry cloud providers to customize and enhance their service for higher education institutions and the extended community. But, additional needed enhancements emerged to remove data transfer and administrative barriers. As with every NET+ service, Internet2 community practitioners formed a Service Advisory Board to address ongoing enterprise and user needs with the service. Their initial priorities were addressing data transfer and administrative issues that were barriers to the more ubiquitous use of the service for institutions, researchers, and application developers.

The Problem

After the AWS service was validated in 2014, it immediately offered institutions many enhancements including security and accessibility reviews, integration of InCommon single sign-on, Internet2 network performance optimizations, and tailored business and legal terms.

But, as the pace of research continues to accelerate, researchers increasingly rely on cloud computing to drive breakthrough science at breakneck speeds and are no longer limited by the availability of computing resources. Further, today’s globally distributed scientific research requires access to data repositories from participating scientists worldwide. Data from experiments all over the world must be accessible to those who need to collaborate.

Realizing this trend, the NET+ AWS Service Advisory Board began to work with AWS to underscore the importance of removing the uncertainty experienced by researchers for use of their cloud, through data egress fees–which are charges associated with data transfer from AWS to the Internet. These fees can potentially add up to significant unfunded expenditures for many central IT units and researchers considering the use of public clouds for their workloads, data in/out charges, and are a barrier to scientific collaboration. 

Particularly, for researchers, these unpredictable fees could be particularly concerning if they are making their research data available to other researchers for download (as is often required by funding agencies). If higher-than-anticipated demand for their data occurs, data egress charges would surpass their budget allocation.

Moreover, for the Internet2 member community, the idea of bandwidth-based charges runs counter to the two decades of investment in building a high-capacity, high-performance R&E network. The Internet2 Network is designed to maintain a sufficiently high level of capacity such that data transport by researchers and internet developers are never constrained by the cost of bandwidth or contention for capacity. So, for Internet2 members, data egress charges were viewed as an impediment to the effective use of cloud services–which are key to developing new applications and workflows that can advance science and scholarship.

Also, institutions need to build applications quickly, and securely–leveraging the agility of the cloud for building applications in the data center, and for greater cost savings and scalability. While, at the same time, maintaining security and quality. Over time, these advantages attract many different users who are seeking this agility–but, setting up account structures, roles and access privileges across different teams and departments were very difficult to manage effectively and became barriers for use or massive administrative burdens. Institutions needed a better way to manage these needs at scale.

Additionally, many research workloads require extensive connectivity to multiple US AWS regions or more specialized capabilities like jumbo frames, which allow large datasets to be moved more quickly from one computing environment to another.

The Solution

Seeing the need to make it easier for researchers to use AWS and for enterprise architects to support them, the AWS Service Advisory Board pointed their collective eyes toward two significant enhancements that would drastically improve the service for researchers and the professionals who support them: 

• Remove constraints of data egress fees to drive breakthrough science with cloud computing;
• Manage a sprawling cloud environment

Over the course of the Service Validation effort, the participants advocated for all institutions to be able to use its cloud storage, computing, and database services with waived data egress fees for qualified researchers and academic customers. Upon reviewing existing usage of the service, the participants and AWS identified an expected threshold of usage under which an institution would not be charged for data egress. This threshold ‘waiver’ model became the standard for cloud agreements, with a goal to decrease real and perceptive barriers to cloud adoption. The NET+ AWS Service Advisory Board continues to advocate for additional enhancements to ease adoption.  

Also, the service advisory board was successful working with AWS to launch “AWS Organizations” for NET+ AWS subscribers–gaining a valuable new tool in managing AWS accounts sprawl on their campus–and providing institutions a sound framework for managing accounts and services like network segmentation and authentication services like organization units, service control policies, centralized management for security, monitoring, and networking.

In addition to the NET+ AWS offering, AWS has worked with Internet2 and regional infrastructure partners to provide private peering services and direct access to AWS Direct Connect through the Internet2 Cloud Connect service. Regional and state networks and subscribers to NET+ AWS gain access to over 300 gigabits per second of private peering capabilities with AWS through the Internet2 Network, in addition to resilient national interconnects for private AWS Direct Connect. Together, these advanced, resilient, secure, community-enabled services make it easier for researchers to access and use cloud resources.

The NET+ Service Advisory Board and AWS worked together to achieve important service enhancements to make it easier for scientists to use, and provide more effective service management for enterprise architects. The Service Advisory Board continues to ensure the NET+ AWS program maintains feature parity with newly released AWS features and products while providing additional enhanced functionality to make it easier to deploy and scale on campus. 

In March 2016, AWS announced it would help make cloud and HPC budgeting more predictable for scientists by offering a 15% maximum discount of total monthly spending on AWS services, which is several times the typical usage among research customers. And, no costs are incurred to upload data into AWS or move data between Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

Further, in February 2019, Internet2 announced that NET+ AWS subscribers cloud usage had propelled the NET+ AWS program to an additional tier of discounting the Service Advisory Board had negotiated, with subscribing accounts now receiving a 5% discount on all AWS spending.

And, with the implementation of AWS Organizations for NET+ AWS subscribers, institutions now have a sound framework for managing AWS accounts, allowing institutions to:

• simplify the account creation process, billing, validation, consolidating, grouping and roles;
• control how services are used within individual accounts; and
• ensure controlled access to HIPAA and other regulated environments.

Now, university infrastructures can better support and advance scholarship and collaborative science. Institutions can more easily adopt, access, and use the resilient, secure, community-enabled AWS service–helping to free institutions from the overhead of managing infrastructure, provisioning servers, and configuring networks. 

Researchers can more predictably and reliably use public clouds for their workloads and make their data available to other researchers without fears that data egress charges would surpass their budget allocation, and enabling greater collaboration to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.

Through the unified voice and collaboration of Internet2 members, AWS has now been integrated with capabilities that mirror the fundamental philosophies of the Internet2 community and cyberinfrastructure: high-capacity, high-performance connectivity that never constrains research and development collaboration. 

Together, these efforts and solutions are a testament of how the research and education community is able to work together with industry to solve shared technology challenges and provide new platforms to develop applications and workflows that can advance science and scholarship.

About Internet2 NET+ AWS and Service Advisory Board

The NET+ AWS program is managed by an Internet2 program manager with the support of the NET+ AWS Service Advisory Board. The NET+ AWS Service Advisory Board reviews and prioritizes community feature requests on a periodic basis. Feature requests may be submitted to [email protected] and the Service Advisory Board can be contacted at [email protected] .

About DLT Solutions

DLT accelerates public sector growth for technology companies in federal, state, local, education, and healthcare markets. As the premier government solutions aggregator, DLT provides industry-leading technology companies access to a robust network of partners, a broad portfolio of contract vehicles, and dedicated channel enablement services.

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Amazon Business Case Study [2024]: In-depth Analysis

How does an online book retailer become a behemoth dominating the global e-commerce industry? The 28-year-old history of Amazon’s growth is a masterclass in building a successful business strategy that has revolutionised the retail experience forever! The company has achieved eponymous status with a global presence and diversified business. No wonder its sales are expected to reach an astounding USD 746.22 billion with a valuation of USD 2 trillion in 2024! From being an online bookseller headquartered in a garage to becoming the second most valuable brand in the world , the saga of this global brand is a case study in all the leading business schools.  

So what is the secret behind the explosive success of Amazon? This article provides a comprehensive case study of Amazon and its winning business strategy. 

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Glimpsing Back: A Brief History of Amazon

With a small team, the budding company made headway in the book-selling market by offering a wide virtual selection of books compared to brick-and-mortar stores with doorstep delivery. With a user-friendly interface, easy-to-search engine, and focus on creating a ‘virtual community,’ the business grew by leaps and bounds. The emphasis on customer choice, experience, and convenience serves the company well even today. 

The name was aspirational with a nod to the largest river in the world- Bezos’ Amazon sought to be the largest e-commerce bookseller in the world. By July 1995, Amazon was marketing itself as the “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore,” selling over one million titles to all 50 states in the US and across 45 countries . It provided stiff competition to brick-and-mortar giants like Barnes and Noble and Borders. 

The company went public with its IPO in 1997 ; since then, there has been no looking back. Since its listing, the company has significantly diversified its offering by including music, electronics, toys, kitchen utensils, clothes, and more on its e-commerce site. From the Earth’s Biggest Bookstore, Amazon shifted its tagline to “Books, Music and More.” The company expanded to Germany and the United Kingdom by purchasing online bookstores, thus increasing its revenue. At its core, the company established a dynamic, efficient, and successful distribution and logistical model that helped capture a global market.

The year 1999 marked two critical moments for Amazon. First, the company patents the “1-Click” technology allowing users to purchase a product with one click. Second, it launches the 3rd party seller marketplace to allow third-party sellers to sell their produce through Amazon. These measures exponentially increased the sales on the platform. The company’s success put Bezos on the map as he received the prestigious accolade of the “Time’s Person of the Year” in 1999 at 35 years of age. 

The company survived the dot-com bubble burst and got only stronger. In 2003, the company took a momentous step by launching Amazon Web Services , a web-hosting business, that marked its arrival into the tech business. It provides cloud computing services to individual developers, companies, and governments through the platform’s IT infrastructure. The strategic shift from an e-commerce platform to a tech company was instrumental in Amazon’s diversification strategy and revenue generation. 

The company took further measures to develop brand loyalty through its Amazon Prime program in 2005. Prime membership has since expanded its services significantly and is one of the most valuable assets for the company today. It reshaped consumer expectations and experiences of shopping across the world. 

Amazon has been on a path of extensive acquisition and alliance . From the online shoe retailer Zappos to the robotics company Kiva Systems and the grocery delivery service Whole Foods- each acquisition captured pre-existing markets and distribution networks of the acquired assets. With every move, the company strategically entered new markets, removed competitive businesses by acquiring them, made distribution and logistics more efficient, and improved consumer experience. These moves catapulted the company to a 1 trillion dollar valuation in 2018. The company’s profits surged during the pandemic as Bezos’ hourly wealth increased by USD 11.7 million . The following year, Bezos stepped down as the CEO and found his replacement in Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services.

Now that we know the history of Amazon, its business strategy becomes easier to decipher. Before we unravel its key business strategies, let’s look at its many businesses. 

Amazon and its Diversified Business Model

A case study of Amazon is incomplete without an understanding of the many businesses that it has a foot in. Here are the diverse businesses that help Amazon generate revenues from multiple streams and have made it a leader in the global market. 

Online retail store

Amazon began as an online seller of books, and it continues its operations as an e-commerce site. Today the site offers a variety of products for the best prices to the consumer’s doorsteps. With an easy-to-use interface, easy return policy, “1-Click” buying, customer reviews, and suggestions, the e-commerce site knits an unrivalled retail experience. 

Amazon Marketplace

Amazon opened its platform to third-party sellers who could leverage its large customer base to sell products. It brings a diversity of products to the retailer without holding inventory. Amazon would, in turn, charge the sellers a percentage of their revenue as a commission fee. It is estimated that third-party sellers generate a gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 300 billion for the platform.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon’s cloud platform offers individual developers, start-ups, established businesses, and governments a range of cloud computing services through its IT infrastructure. It is the fastest-growing business segment for the brand clocking a global net revenue of USD 80.1 billion in 2022. 

Amazon Prime

Amazon’s member subscription service offers numerous membership benefits ranging from access to digital video and music streaming, audiobook and ebook platforms, free delivery, exclusive deals, Prime Day access, and much more. The company’s global net revenue from its subscription services stood at USD 35.22 billion in 2022. 

Amazon revealed in 2022 that the advertising wing of the company had generated a revenue of USD 31.2 billion the preceding year. The company offers custom advertising solutions to customers and campaign placements across multiple channels like Fire TV placements, Amazon physical stores, the brand’s homepage, and customised destination pages.

Physical stores

Amazon made an entry into the brick-and-mortar business with the establishment of a physical bookstore in Seattle in 2015. The company has since expanded its physical presence with Amazon Go, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go Grocery, Whole Foods Market, and Amazon Style. It has sought to transform the real-world shopping experience with its “Just Walk Out Shopping’ experience. 

Breaking Down Amazon’s Business Strategy

Amazon’s business strategy has been innovative and forward-thinking from the get-go. Its path-breaking business model has inspired many but retains its uniqueness in execution. At its core, the company has maintained its customer-centric ethos, where its customers comprise three sets: retail customers, seller customers, and developer customers.   

For a comprehensive case study of Amazon , let’s take a closer look at the secret recipe behind its success.

Customer Obsession

The company proudly proclaims that it aims to be the “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Since its inception, Amazon has won over the trust and loyalty of its customers by perfecting its marketing mix by offering “a comprehensive selection of products, low prices, fast and free delivery, easy-to-use functionality, and timely customer service.”   As Amazon’s customer base and usage expands exponentially, the company has worked towards optimising user experience through continuous assessment and feedback mechanisms.

Diversification

Amazon has kept up with the emerging demands of the market with growth potential in the long term. Its future-oriented vision has helped the company grow by leaps and bounds by venturing into new businesses that have added to its revenue streams. From cloud computing services to OTT services and subscription-based benefits, Amazon has reinvented what a diversified business looks like. 

Expansion through partnerships and acquisitions

Amazon has continually acquired and partnered with businesses to expand its customer base, enter new markets, diversify its product offerings, eliminate competition, and gain distribution and logistical networks. From IMDB and The Washington Post to Twitch and Pillpack, Amazon has bought companies across multiple categories to gain a foothold in their markets and operations. It has helped the company scale up its functions rapidly across the globe.

Technologically-driven innovations

Initially, Amazon was written off as it was started by “computer guys” who knew nothing about selling books. However, it was a focus on innovative technology that the company grew into a tech giant dominating the e-commerce space. Whether it is the 1-Click technology, SEO, user interface, cloud computing services, Just Walk Out technology, or its e-devices, the company has optimised customer experience by leveraging technology.

Data-based metrics

Amazon has consistently relied on metrics to assess, strategise, and grow its business. Data is an invaluable currency left behind with every click by the customer. The company has effectively and efficiently amassed these data into actionable insights to improve user experience, build and improve products and services, and develop successful marketing strategies. 

Marketing strategy

A comprehensive marketing strategy has been central to Amazon’s brand-building exercise. With the right marketing mix, the brand has become a household name. Its name and logo are recognisable anywhere in the world. A continual push to diversify its portfolio, competitive pricing policy, expanding its operations, and consistent promotions through multiple channels have been integral to achieving this global status. 

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Amazon, the second-most valuable company in the world, has been almost three decades in the making. Every step and misstep has been strategic and guided by the principles of: “customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking.” This case study of Amazon has sought to highlight its history, business model, and business strategies that have gone into the making of the behemoth. Ultimately, the company is a product of the management of Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s leadership. 

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Jeff Bezos has held the position of Founder and CEO of the company. However, he inherited the position of the Executive Chairman of Amazon after resigning as the CEO of the company in 2021.

Amazon launched in India in June 2013. Initially starting its operations to serve Indians with books, films, TV shows and subscription-based services, the company further expanded its wings to become one of the leading shopping destinations for Indians.

The most important focal point of Amazon’s business strategy is its customers (retail customers, sellers, and developers) and building a customer-centric company.

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Comparing Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud

The popularity of Cloud Computing and Cloud Platforms has skyrocketed in the last half a decade. These platforms have become an integral part of our lives and many applications and businesses that we see or know of. With this popularity and growing demand, many Cloud platforms have sprung up in recent years. The question that bothers many learners and business owners is which service provider to choose. In this article on AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud, we will compare the three of the best cloud service providers in the market.

Cloud Computing is an on-demand delivery of computer system resources such as storage, applications, computing power, and other IT resources over the internet. It’s called cloud computing because users can access these system resources from any region through the “cloud” which is the internet. All user files and applications are stored on a network of remote servers instead of local servers.

Today, any internet-savvy individual makes use of cloud computing on a daily basis. Activities such as document editing, watching movies, listening to music, playing games, storing and accessing data, emails, etc. make significant use of cloud computing. On the other hand, companies use cloud computing services for developing new applications, data storage and analysis, on-demand software delivery, website and blog hosting, and video and audio streaming.

So let us start of by AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform. First we will start by understanding AWS.

In the cloud computing market, there are three main platform providers – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).  AWS is the market leader among the three, while Azure and GCP are growing consistently. All three platforms have their own features that would match an application developer’s requirements.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Series or AWS as we abbreviate it is one of the leading Cloud Service providers in the market. It was initiated in 2002. Back then, it offered only a few sets of tools and services. It was in 2003 when Chris Pinkham and Benjamin Black presented a paper that helped automate and revolutionize the AWS platform.

They believed that the retail platform, Amazon, could serve a bigger and better purpose. This is when Amazon started looking at it from a larger business perspective, and we had services like Cloud Storage and Computation that came into existence by the end of 2004. It was Christopher Brown and his team that made this possible and Amazon services was cherished across the globe.

The popularity of AWS is unfathomable, and we will understand what makes this 170+ Cloud Service Provider work well. Before that, let us go ahead and understand the Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure, as the name suggests, is Microsoft’s Cloud platform that lets you test, build, deploy, and even manage applications that are placed in Microsoft Azure’s data centers or Availability Zones. It has all three service model solutions just like AWS, which are infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. It lets you integrate with different open source and Microsoft Stack of products/tools and programming languages.

It was announced in 2008 but was released on February 1, 2020, as Windows Azure and later on renamed to Microsoft Azure as we know it today.

Azure is similar to AWS and offers a variety of products and solutions for app developers. The Azure platform offers good processing and computing power. It is capable of deploying and managing virtual machines at scale. Azure can also run large-scale “parallel batch computing” – a unique feature that it shares with AWS over the Google Cloud Platform.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Google Cloud Platform (GCP), also known as Google Cloud, announced in 2008 its first Public Cloud Service Google App Engine which become public in 2011. It was the first Platform as a Service introduced by Google Cloud. Post that, Google introduced various service cloud services in the public domain. These services reside on the same cloud space where popular Google Services reside like Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, etc.

Google is popularly known for its services in Machine Learning, Data Analytics , Compute, Storage, etc.

I believe this is enough information about the Cloud Service providers we plan to compare. Let us go ahead and understand how these compare with each other.

When we start with market share, what better way to see the numbers than to start by taking a look at the Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure services.

This tells you that AWS is still leading the Cloud Market with a definitive edge. Yes, Azure and Google Cloud follow suit, but they do have some catching up to do.

Talking about the numbers, AWS had a clear head start in the market since it initiated quite early than others. But it still holds on top position in the market and by quite a margin, as Q4 in 2019, these were the respective market shares were as follows-

• Amazon Web Services: 33% of the market share
• Microsoft Azure: 18%
• Google Cloud Platform: 8% of the market share

But numbers can be deceptive. It was also revealed that AWS grew by just 41% last year. Whereas Google Cloud and Azure grew by 80% and 75% respectively. This suggests is that Azure and Google Cloud are catching up.

This was about the market share. Let us see how these Cloud Service Providers compare when it comes to their reach in terms of infrastructure.

When we discuss the infrastructure that concerns these platforms, we have to consider two terms, those are, Regions and Availability Zones.

Here, regions mean a geographical location where a Cloud Data center resides.

Availability Zone

It is the data center that resides in a region. Regions may have more than one Data-center. Some regions, for certain services providers, have only one data center. Hence, we do not use the availability zone term in that case. That data center is called or known as region.

Here are some numbers to see how these platforms compare:

Amazon Web Services

• Regions: 24 Launched and 3 announced
• Availability Zones: 76
• Countries served: 245
• Regions: 60+
• Countries served: 140

Google Cloud Platform

• Regions: 22
• Availability Zone: 61
• Countries served: 35

It is clear that Amazon Web Services has a wider reach and provides services to more countries than the other two platforms. Let us now move ahead and see what kind of customer base these platforms support.

AWS, Azure and Google Cloud all have high profile users and customers. Let us take a look at those.

Amazon Web Series has the largest community support and customer base, and it has many profile customers in the market. To name a few, we have-

• McDonald’s

Companies Like Netflix, LinkedIn spend $10-19 million a month on their instances. That tells you how much trust people have in this platform and also how large and high profile the customer base is. It also has a very widespread small scale industry customer base.

Microsoft Azure is not far behind in this race. It also has a wide customer base and has gained a lot of popularity in most of the Top Fortune 500 companies. Around 70-80% of fortune 500 companies use Microsoft Azure. Some known brands that use this platform are:

Among the three, Google Cloud is the youngest and has a smaller customer base compared to others. But we should not forget Google Cloud is home to YouTube, and Gmail which are huge on their own. Here is a list of some other popular customers they have-

So this was about some of the customers these Cloud Service Providers have. Please not these are just some numbers and honorable mentions. If you visit the websites for these platforms you will find a large number of customer base and even many case studies that tell you how these service providers have solved problems for numerous businesses across the globe.

Now that we know what customers these platforms serve, let us see and compare the services provided by these platforms.

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform provide numerous cloud computing services that are there in the market. If we are to bluntly put out the numbers then this is how the service numbers appear.

Since there are so many services these service providers provide, these services are classified into subcategories, or domains, let us dig deeper into some of these services.

Compute Services

When we compare compute services, AWS has all the praise for EC2 which is very popular in the market. It also supports various other compute services that touch PaaS, container, and even serverless computing service. Azure also has many services that match AWS in these domains. Google Cloud, however, lacks a little when compared with these two platforms. Here is a list of some notable services these Service providers provide.

Storage Services

Storage is a very important service when it comes to Cloud Computing because it is only after you store data you can think of other services that can help process your data. Let us see how these Service Providers take care of Storage on Cloud.

No matter if you are looking for object, Block or file storage, AWS covers it all. Not just that, it takes storage to a different level as it provides services like Amazon Storage Gateway, Snowball and Snowmobile. These services ensure you covered even if your requirement are for hybrid storage, or even if you actually want to move your data physically.  Hence Amazon Web Services has you covered here.

Microsoft Azure’s is equally good when it comes to storing your data on cloud. It covers you with basic storage services like Blob Storage for object storage which maybe unstructured data. It provides Queue Storage if you ate dealing with large-volume storage workloads. it also provides File and Disk Storage. It covers you Big Data Application needs with Data Lake Store.

Google Cloud also limited in terms of Storage Services just as it is Compute domain. However  it has unified object storage service, and even a Persistent Disk storage option.Just Amazon Snowball  it provides Data Transfer Application, and also supports online Data transfer services.

Here is list of some popular services these platforms provide-

Now that we know how Storage Services have fared. Let us go ahead and see how these Cloud giants fare with each other in terms of Cloud Database offerings.

When it comes to databases and archiving, here too, Amazon has a plethora of Cloud Services to offer. It is SQL-compatible databases like Aurora or even databases that are Relational like the Relational Database Service (RDS). It has you covered on NoSQL Databases too, it offers service called Dynamo. Whereas, ElastiCache service provides an in-memory data store too. If your requirements need you to have a Data Warehouse, a graph database, or even services that meet data migration needs, it answers with services like Amazon Redshift, Neptune. As already mentioned in storage services, even if archival storage is to be handled even that is managed with Amazon Glacier.

Microsoft Azure provides numerous extensive Database options. SQL database requirements are fullfilled using three database services.

• DB for MySQL
• DB for PostGreSQL

It covers you for Data Warehouse requirements with Cosmos DB and their stable Storage for NoSQL. Redis Cache provides in-memory service and for Hybrid Storage requirements, there is Server Stretch Database. It is designed in such a way that it suites specific organizations that use Microsoft SQL Server for their data centers. Amazon Web Services lack a little in the backup domain. Microsoft Azure comparatively does better there and is equally adept when it comes to Archival storage.

It does provide SQL and NoSQL  Database services. Google Cloud Spanner is a service for SQL based Databases that are designed for data critical workloads requirements. Cloud Bigtable and Cloud Datastore are its options for NoSQL database requirements. Again the number of services and options it provides in comparison to Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services is still less and limited. It does have services for Backup or archival. Here is a list of database services that work similarly for these cloud service providers.

So this was about Databases. Let us go ahead and compare these platforms based on Networking Domain.

Networking Domain 

These services do fairly well against each other when compared and there is very little to choose when put head to head. Here is a list of services when compared head to head.

Pricing is easily the hardest measure to compare these Cloud Service Providers for. This is because pricing varies greatly when it comes to comparing them based on small-term investment or short sized services. However, let us try and do that.

When it comes to short term investments or small-sized resources, Google Cloud gives better pricing options. Here is one example for the same. Let us consider small-sized virtual instances with minimum RAM and Virtual CPU requirements. Google Cloud will cost around, $50-55 per month. Amazon Web Services will cost you $69 per month and Microsoft Azure will cost you around $70-75 per month.

But as we scale up the pricing models change a lot and give you a very different picture. Let us consider this example, if we opt for the largest instance these platforms provide different pricing, an instance with around 4 TB of RAM, and around 128 Virtual CPU’s Amazon Web services offer the best pricing here, it costs around $2700 to $3000 per month. Microsoft Azure costs around $5000 per month, whereas Google Cloud costs $3800 to 4000 per month.

So it is clear that Google Cloud is cheaper when it comes to short term investments. Another point that supports the claim is Google Cloud charges on a per-second basis. Microsoft Azure gives you per minute billing. Amazon Web Services had hour billing, but in recent times it too has moved to per-minute billing.

Google Cloud ensures when it comes to small-term investments, it comes with various offers and discounts ensuring cheaper pricing. So as mentioned earlier choosing a provider based on pricing can be tricky and may vary on what sort of business requirements your business has.

We have already compared these platforms on quite a few pointers, however, there are quite a few other pointers these platforms can be compared on.

Here is an overall miscellaneous comparison. Let us start with Amazon Web Services.

What makes Amazon Web Services stand out? Firstly its head start, meaning it has had that extra valuable years to firm its dominance in the market. This can be proven with facts. Amazon Web Services has been the market leader in terms of Market share in IaaS services, it provides and Gartner supports that claim with numbers.

Another reason for this success is the number of services it provides, it almost provides double the services the second-best competitor provides in terms of the sheer number of services it has to offer. It is a highly mature platform and is ready to serve different enterprise-level requirements. It also has deep and precise capabilities.

But everything has weaknesses. Amazon is costly when it comes to short term investments and many find it tricky to opt for this platform due to the uncertainty on its pricing models. But the wide array of services it provides makes up for the lapse in pricing concerns. Certainly Amazon’s strong points or pros overshadow Amazon’s weaknesses.

Now let us go ahead and see how Microsoft Azure Fares when it comes to its strengths and weaknesses.

Microsoft is a company that has overcome various hurdles in the IT and software industry it has ever come across. This ability has also transpired into Cloud offerings it provides.

Microsoft always had a stronghold and contributions to the On-Premise service market. It has ensured that services and offering it provided can be moved to the cloud and can be made Azure Cloud Compatible. Even though it had a late start, it is making up for it at a very good pace.

Another major reason why Microsoft Azure is so popular and is so widely used is because Microsoft Azure integrates with most of Microsoft stack of products with easy. Hence many companies and enterprises find it relevant to migrate to Microsoft Azure because then the deployment seems easy and effortless.

Microsoft Azure is claimed to be enterprise-ready. But one of the shortcomings that people or customers complain about is the shortcomings it comes with when it comes to supporting experience that face on an enterprise level. And customers complain it is little on the shorter side.

Let us see how this platform fares compared to others, and what are its pros and cons.

Let us start by taking a look at its strengths first.

It offers fairly strong offerings in containers, it has developed a standard for Kubernetes, and high computation capabilities in terms of Big Data Analytics, and even Machine Learning. it also offers decent enough load balancing and scalability.

If we are to compare it with Amazon web Services and Microsoft Azure, it lacks a little here with lesser market share, and lesser number of services.

By now, I assume we have discussed numerous pointers using which you can take a call on what platform will suit your needs best. All these providers have their strengths and weaknesses, and I am sure by now you can choose one for your requirements. Before we all sign out, here are some final points.

• Market Share: Amazon Web Services is a clear winner here
• Global Infrastructure: In terms of number Amazon Web Services stands  out here too
• Growth: GCP is a clear winner here
• Service Comparison: Amazon web Services wins for numbers whereas Microsoft Azure wins for integration capabilities
• Pricing: Small investments GCP wins, longer run costs Amazon Web Services is a winner

So this is, by now you should have a clear picture as to how these Cloud providers fare against each other. This brings us to the end of this article on AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud.

Cloud Computing services has triggered a revolution in the IT industry. It has become a go-to factor for application implementation and hosting for all companies, whether big or small. According to a Gartner Survey Report, the market for public cloud is predicted to reach around $411 billion in 2020. This is bound to generate a wide range of job opportunities in this field. So, if you are planning to start a career in this domain, you are on the right track. Getting a cloud computing certification in this field will definitely help in learning and developing your skills. Become a cloud computing expert and join the elite group of highly paid IT professionals in the world.

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Microsoft's AI lead puts Amazon cloud dominance on watch

• Medium Text

GOOGLE AI GAINS TO TAKE LONGER

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Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva

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Elon musk visits china as tesla seeks self-driving technology rollout.

Tesla debuted the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software four years ago, but has yet to make it available in China, its second-largest market. Local rivals have been seeking an advantage by rolling out similar software.

Medium's CEO explains how he cut over $500,000 in monthly IT spend by clamping down on unused Amazon cloud services

• Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine ordered teams to examine the company's cloud budget.
• Employees found a lot of unused space with providers like AWS and Snowflake. 
• The company has cut its monthly AWS budget nearly in half. 

When Tony Stubblebine became CEO of Medium in 2022, he was tasked with making the online publishing platform profitable for the first time in the company's decadelong history.

Stubblebine expects Medium to hit that milestone sometime this year, thanks in part to a somewhat unexpected strategy — scrutinizing the company's budget for cloud storage and services.

Stubblebine's mandate to cut costs across the company began when he joined two years ago. He soon realized that cloud computing was the most bloated part of Medium's budget.

"What's ended up happening is that probably about half of our path to profitability came from cost-cutting and a quarter of that is in cloud costs," Stubblebine told BI.

When he initially directed teams to examine their cloud spending, Stubblebine expected to find instances of inefficient usage that might require the advice of an outside expert before shutting down.

Instead, employees found lots of space the company simply wasn't using, and that no one had bothered to check.

"These weren't hard costs for the existing team to cut," said Stubblebine. "As soon as we gave them permission to go looking, then they found a ton of stuff immediately and they could fix all of it."

Related stories

It's not just Stubblebine who plans to continue cutting cloud costs. A Barclays survey found that 83% of CIOs plan to "re-patriate" or remove certain workloads from the cloud in the first half of 2024, up from 43% four years ago.

In Medium's case, the most bloat came from the biggest providers. That's meant cutting back significantly on Amazon Web Services and Snowflake. Savings on AWS, Stubblebine said, is "trending north of $500,000 a month" — nearly half of what Medium used to spend.

The cloud industry refers to cost-cutting as " cloud optimization ." Last year, cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft cited cloud optimization as the reason cloud sales growth had slipped to historic lows. As growth has crept back up in recent months, these same companies have declared the days of cloud optimization to be over.

But Stubblebine thinks that cloud optimization is part of a broader mentality shift sweeping the pre-IPO startup world. With investor money harder to come by, he said, companies are focused on profit — and cost-cutting is part of that.

"I just told the team that cost-cutting and growth are the same," said Stubblebine. "We're not saying that one is better than the other."

Cutting cloud spend has also allowed Medium to move faster.

"To have less is better for development," said Stubblebine. "And that's why people call it tech debt. It's not just a financial cost, it's a cognitive load for the product teams."

Got a tip for this reporter? Contact Ellen Thomas on Signal at 929-524-6964 or [email protected].

Watch: How tech layoffs could affect the economy

• Main content

Amazon is opening cloud regions in Southeast Asia to meet customer demand, CTO says

• From startups to government agencies, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels said customers "have been asking" for local data residency.

"And for them, it's important to have these kinds of technologies on the ground, in [the] country to make sure that they can serve their customers best or their citizens best," said Vogels.

• Amazon Web Services was the world's largest cloud service provider in the fourth quarter, accounting for 31% of total cloud spending, according to a Feb. 26 report from Canalys.

Amazon is opening cloud regions in Southeast Asia because customers want their data stored securely in their own countries, Amazon Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels said in an exclusive interview.

"The reason for this is that many of our customers have been asking for that. They really wanted something local such that they can meet, for example, local data storage requirements, or protection of personal identifiable information," Vogels told CNBC's JP Ong.

Amazon's cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, was the world's largest cloud service provider in the fourth quarter, accounting for 31% of total cloud spending, according to a Feb. 26 report from Canalys.

An AWS region is a physical location where data centers are clustered. Within each AWS region are a minimum of three separate availability zones. Each zone has its own power, cooling and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks.

"And it's not just startups that are looking for that. Big enterprises and government agencies as well. You can imagine government agencies want to go through a digital transformation as well," Vogels said.

Amazon in November said it is launching a new AWS Region in Malaysia this year. It previously committed a 25.5 billion Malaysian ringgit ($6 billion) investment by 2037 to support the government's ambitions to transform Malaysia into a "high-income" digital economy by 2030.

"This new AWS Region will also enable customers with data residency preferences to store data securely in Malaysia, help customers to achieve even lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services across Southeast Asia," the statement said.

This comes after AWS opened a cloud region in Indonesia in December 2021 and in Singapore in 2010. AWS is also planning to launch an infrastructure region in Thailand.

AWS already operates multiple regions across North America, South America, Europe, China, Asia Pacific, South Africa and the Middle East.

"And especially, of course, the security capabilities that AWS has, that allows us to protect these customers. Security, will be, and is forever, our number one priority. [It] is our number one investment area," said Vogels.

"And to be able to keep customers safe in our compute regions, [it] is of great attraction to companies here in the region and also governments."