Simply AWeSome - Amazon Web Services Shortly

    Immediately after its 10th anniversary, AWS hosted AWSome Day in the IT Park - our technology park was among the lucky ones to receive a free AWS cloud training course. Taking the opportunity, we interviewed Sergey Rakovsky, AWS Account Manager in Russia and the CIS.




    - Sergey, please tell us about the infrastructure and principles of AWS.
    To give you an idea of ​​how we are structured and to explain our terminology, we begin with the fact that the concept of “regions” exists in our company. Regions are the geographical location of our computing infrastructures. Services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and many more are located in AWS regions. Regions are divided into so-called Availability Zones. Availability zones (hereinafter - ZD) are certain zones that are designed in such a way as not to depend on failures in other ZD, they provide an inexpensive connection with low latency to other ZD in the same region. For example, each ZD works on different Tier 1 networks, in different electric networks and, in some cases, in different seismic zones. ZDs consist of one, sometimes several, data centers — some ZDs have 6 data centers each.

    Along with AWS regions, we also have Edge Locations (sometimes referred to as Points of Presence) around the world, where we host our Amazon CloudFront and Amazon Route 53 services.
    When choosing new locations for Edge Locations and In the regions, we listen to our customers to understand where our infrastructure is most needed.

    - And what kind of hardware do you use?
    In our data centers we use special servers and storage systems. Each server is adapted and optimized for a specific workload. We also collect special microcircuits designed for our loads, whose operating frequencies are significantly higher than the frequencies of mass-produced microcircuits. We also have our own solutions for building networks (network), hardware and protocol stack. With this set of services, we can provide our customers with a high level of availability at a lower price. We also have our own fiber-optic channels for connecting all our international regions to each other, and within one region we have more than 82,000 fibers that connect all of our ZDs to each other - this is more than 25 terabytes moving between ZDs every second.

    This allows us to give customers a high level of security along with increased availability, increased performance, lower jitter and lower cost. Since we save the cost of maintaining our infrastructure, we are able to reduce prices for our customers. To date, AWS has reduced prices 51 times without any pressure from competitors.

    “AWS has just celebrated its 10th anniversary.” What is your main achievement at this moment and what are your plans for the future?
    One of the main trends that we have seen since the launch of AWS in 2006 is the democratization of the IT industry. AWS was able to increase competition in the industry by providing access to resources for small businesses that were previously inaccessible and often possible at significant costs. AWS paves the way for companies to grow and helps them become well-known brands. Over the past 10 years, AWS has watched how startups use cloud technology to grow and serve customers around the world, with vivid examples: AirBnB, Spotify, and Pinterest.

    On the other hand, some of the largest and oldest companies in the world now also use AWS to accelerate innovation within their organizations and achieve the same agility and flexibility as startups.
    Companies such as General Electric, Shell, Philips, Pfizer, and many others use AWS to solve critical tasks. Customers from highly regulated industries such as the public, energy, financial services, oil and gas, and transportation sectors are moving large amounts of their infrastructure to AWS around the world. Now we have more than a million customers using the platform every month.

    - In the Gartner quadrant, AWS comes out on the first position for the fourth time. How do you do it?
    Innovation is in our DNA, and our structure, product development approach and presentation are fundamentally different from IT solutions from other suppliers. We have decentralized, autonomous development teams that work directly with our customers. They have the ability to develop and launch products based on what they learned during their interactions with consumers. We constantly introduce new products and provide customers with constant access to the latest innovations - there is no need for updates, deployments or relocations. When an add-on or enhancement is ready, we release it, and it is always available for any client using this service.

    This approach also allows us to quickly launch and implement new services. For example, since 2006 we launched 70 large-scale new services, which we constantly improve based on reviews, customer needs and their use of the product.

    - AWS has more than 1 million users. How do you plan to increase the number of customers?
    We are experiencing a technology change that is different from any other revolution in our time, and it is happening at an amazing speed - much faster than anyone could have predicted. We are confident that the time will come when only very few companies will have their own data center, which means one thing - most applications are moving to the cloud. It also becomes very obvious that cloud technologies are no longer perceived as something supernatural.

    Ultimately, this means that every industry will be able to develop innovations in new directions: from personalized medicine to a better understanding of our world and university education available to hundreds of thousands around the world, new business models of traditional industries and the advent of “related of the world ”- we are only at the beginning of what is possible with cloud technologies.

    “One of the important aspects for you must be security.” Tell us a little about your approach to this issue in AWS.
    Customer trust is our priority, and we work day and night so that our customers around the world can work reliably on AWS, in accordance with the law and without disruption.

    Since we launched the services in 2006, AWS has received many international certificates and accreditations that demonstrate compliance with such standards as ISO 27001, ISO 27018, ISO 9001, PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 1, 2 & 3, HIPAA , FedRAMP / FISMA, DoD CSM level 1 & 2, and the recently added ISO 27017. We constantly listen to our customers and consider receiving other certificates in the future.
    It is also worth noting that customers retain the right to own their own content and choose which AWS services can process, store and host their data. Clients determine in which AP their information will be stored, in full confidence that their data will not be moved anywhere without their consent.

    When using infrastructure in AWS regions, our customers also get access to advanced security tools and services that provide numerous additional levels of security and technical capabilities. We also give customers the opportunity to encrypt the transmitted (data in motion) and stored information (data at rest), where only the consumer has access to the encryption keys. Encrypted content becomes completely inaccessible without appropriate decryption keys.

    - What can you tell us about security inside Amazon EC2?
    Security runs the red line through not only all layers of the AWS infrastructure, but through all its services. AWS services are built to work seamlessly and efficiently across all AWS networks and platforms. Each service provides extensive security controls to enable customers to protect sensitive information and applications.
    Amazon EC2 is designed to make online scaling of computing resources easier, allowing consumers to easily access and configure power. Clients create and run instances, which are a platform software-hardware mixture.

    The security inside Amazon C2 is built on multiple levels: the host operating system (OS), virtual instance or guest OS, firewalls and signed API calls. Each of these components builds on the capabilities of the other components. The goal is to prevent the interception of information inside Amazon EC2 by unauthorized systems and users, and to provide Amazon EC2 with instances that are as secure as possible without compromising the configuration flexibility required by customers.
    For more information on security in AWS, see here .

    - Which AWS products are the least and most popular?
    The cloud has become a new norm, as now companies of different levels by default place new applications in the cloud and strive to transfer as many existing applications as possible and as quickly as possible. Therefore, we see how consumers use all AWS technologies, from our fundamental services to services of a higher level. I can’t tell you what our most popular service is, but here are some statistics: Amazon Aurora is the fastest growing service in AWS history, Amazon RDS has more than 100,000 active users and AWS database services, including Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift and Amazon ElastiCache are multi-billion dollar (dollar) businesses, not including Amazon itself.

    - What could be the reasons for rejecting * aaS models? Are there any differences in this regard between Russian and European consumers?
    I believe that there is no reason to abandon cloud technology. The cloud gives customers increased flexibility, speed and versatility with greater security and lower prices.

    - How does your company reward its employees?
    Amazon is an equal opportunity company committed to hiring and developing the best employees. Be it our Development Centers or work with clients and partners, we provide a full range of benefits and advantages for employees and their families. This is how we achieve rapid growth and continue to grow and hire some of the most talented technicians worldwide. For your readers who are interested in how it works for Amazon or AWS, I would recommend visiting www.amazon.jobs

    - How often do you arrange flyers in your company?
    AWS is a customer-oriented company. Therefore, we try to spend as much time as possible with our customers. From time to time, we have "flies", but still we prefer them to spend time with our customers.

    - Did you like in Kazan and, in particular, in the IT park?
    Our team really liked it. The clients we met meet asked interesting questions and are currently creating innovative AWS applications. Looking forward to the next meeting!

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