Why Using AWS is Better than Doing It Yourself

Why should you use a cloud-based service like AWS instead of building your own data center?

The answer is simple: So that your shop can become service-based rather than resource-based. Or at least that's what CBT Nuggets trainer Jeremy Cioara says in this video:

We've all heard the arguments for using cloud applications. They typically boil down to the structural limitations of what you can do alone size, speed, and skills. When you can solve those limitations with a service, then it opens up a world of possibility. You can better serve your customers. You can manage services rather than fixing resources. And, importantly scale to any size big or small without a strained or overbuilt system.

Beyond the technical benefits, the customer- and team-based reasons are the most compelling for learning AWS, if you haven't yet.

Here are a few non-technological reasons a service-based mindset is better for your customers and team.

More Services without Straining Your Team

A business that hosts everything on-site limits itself to the resources it has on hand. You'll be prioritizing, re-prioritizing, and negotiating (with yourself and others) much more often with a resource-based mindset. You might come up with winning project ideas, only to find that their current server environment won't support the necessary applications or handle the ensuing web traffic. Yes. AWS solves the issue of resource management, but it also presents new challenges.

With AWS, you won't have to buy and configure five new racks of hardware, but you still need to learn how to use your new cloud services. Luckily, that's something relatively simple to accomplish with AWS training.

Like most vendors, AWS has a series of certifications to help you learn and validate your knowledge of their product. Building on the skills learned in Cisco's routing and switching CCNA or CCNP, and CompTIA Network+, AWS certifications such as AWS Technical Essentials or Anthony Sequeira's new SysOps Administrator will bring your team up to speed quickly on what it means to be service-oriented.

Once your team is trained on how to use the AWS services relevant to your organization, you'll have every resource necessary from day-to-day operations to special projects. This means you can focus on serving your customers and let the people at AWS worry about handling the hardware end of things.

Serve the Customers You Didn't Know You Have

Almost every business has their busy and slow seasons. For many companies, that means maintaining their max capacity in servers year-round. What about the customers you never knew you had though?

Retailers know that they better be ready for Christmas, and plan accordingly. If a business runs a Super Bowl ad, they've planned for the flood of traffic. It's part of the plan initially (hopefully).

Similarly, if your infrastructure has ever struggled to keep up with your dev or analytics teams, you know the challenges of a resource-based way of thinking. Even a competent DevOps team can be woefully resource-based in their thinking.

Long-term, those sorts of issues could seriously harm your hard-earned reputation with both internal and external customers. But purchasing the hardware and extra software to handle a sudden surge of traffic can be expensive, especially if it's only needed temporarily. AWS can shift resources as needed to ensure your organization's sites and applications are always available.

You're Hiring an Army of Specialists for Pennies

Prior to the cloud, businesses had to pay for full-time salaried professionals to support their infrastructure. For small- and mid-sized businesses, this meant hiring a generalist who could rapidly shift from one skill to another, whether or not that person possessed the necessary qualifications.

Even large corporations found that they couldn't justify hiring a salaried specialist to handle a specific project. AWS serves a large global client base, allowing it access to some of the best professionals in the industry, many with considerable data center experience and advanced networking certifications. This ensures that when there is a problem or a project need, someone is always available to help.

Speaking of Pennies

One thing that most appeals to businesses about AWS is cost savings. Instead of paying for hardware, software, and information systems professionals, businesses can pay one monthly rate. As an IT pro, the prospect of the cloud might have serious implications on the availability of jobs, considering those cost savings aren't just hardware, but also the people who operate the hardware and software.

More companies than ever are operating in the cloud. In the annual State of the Cloud Survey, 95 percent of respondents are using some form of cloud technology, whether they opt for private, public, or hybrid solutions.

Among the many cloud solutions now available, Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains the most popular cloud provider, accounting for eight percent of all revenue for the online retail giant. But for those businesses still maintaining on-site servers, it can seem like a challenging jump.

A service-based mindset isn't exclusive to the cloud, particularly with software-defined networking. Every IT infrastructure in the future will eventually become a group of services.