AWS Cloud Essentials: Part 2

Hey there and Welcome!! 👋
I’m Ahamed Basha and throughout this blog I will be explaining about the Essentials of Amazon Web Services(AWS).
Table of Contents:
1. Storage on AWS
2. Databases on AWS
3. Monitoring on AWS

Storage on AWS:

Storage is classified in three categories:
1. File Storage
2. Block Storage
3. Object Storage

File Storage- A basic storage drive like how we store our files in our local computer. Let’s say you have 100 pictures of a dog, now we will create a folder named “Dog Images” and save all the files in the folder and retrieve those images using a path something like D:\Dog Images\image01.png.

Just like the same way if you want your files to be centrally available and easily shared and managed by multiple host computers then we implement files in File Storage.

Common use cases for file storage include:
- Large content repositories
- Development environments
- User home directories

Block Storage- File storage primarily treats files as a singular unit whereas block storage splits files into fixed-size chunks of data called blocks that have their own addresses. Since each block is addressable, blocks can be retrieved efficiently.

Example- when you want to change a character in a file you just change the block or the piece of the file that contain the character and this is the reason block storage solutions are fast and uses less bandwidth.

Object Storage- Files are stored as a single unit of data in a flat structure. Every object in the file are unique identifier. So when you want to make a change in one character in a file the entire file must be updated.

Few AWS Storage Services:

1. Amazon EC2 Instance Store (Block Storage)
2. Amazon EBS (Block Storage)
3. Amazon S3 (Object Storage)
4. Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) and Amazon FSx (File Storage)

Databases on AWS:

Relational Database is basically data into tables which can be linked with another table which forms a relation between tables. Few Relational Database Management Systems: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server and Amazon Aurora.

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Why use Relational Database?

1. Use of Joins
2. Reduced Redundancy
3. Familiarity
4. Accuracy

If you want to run a relational database on AWS you need to select if you want to run in a managed or unmanaged way.

Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)

A Service that enables you to create and manage relational databases in the cloud supporting all Relational Database Management Systems including:

Commercial: Oracle, SQL Server

Open Source: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB

Cloud Native: Amazon Aurora

Amazon DynamoDB:

A fully managed NoSQL Database service which provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. This can retrieve any data and serve any level of request traffic. Data is stored in SSD (Solid State Drive) and replicated across multiple availability zones in a region.

Tables (collection of items), Items (each table contains zero or more items) and Attributes (each item is composed of one or more attributes) are the core components of DynamoDB.

Monitoring on AWS:

Amazon CloudWatch a monitoring, observability service which collects data and provides insights of your applications.

Uses:

1. Detect and Troubleshoot issues
2. Detect anomalous behavior in an environment
3. Visualize logs and metrics
4. Monitor system-wide performance changes

Thank you for spending your time on reading about the Essentials of AWS Cloud Part 2. If you learned something new, I really appreciate you dropping me a clap and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.