AWS stands for Amazon Web Services and is a cloud computing platform that allows businesses to deploy and run applications on demand. It offers a comprehensive suite of software and hardware infrastructure, database management systems, web application platforms, and programming languages. It provides a pay-as-you-go model that scales throughput, storage and compute according to the needs of your business. It also provides a secure environment to host and run your most critical data and applications.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has compared it to the power companies of the early 1900s that replaced private electric plants. Instead of each company building its own power plant to get electricity, companies now subscribe to the power provided by a public utility company. AWS does the same for computer technology, allowing businesses to pay for the capacity they need rather than investing in their own expensive servers and other IT equipment.

As one of the first pay-as-you-go cloud platforms, AWS has grown to offer a variety of different services for business users. It has multiple global data centers and tens of Availability Zones, enabling it to provide reliable infrastructure that is resistant to server failure or other disasters. It also provides a variety of tools for business owners to monitor and manage their IT environment, including the AWS Management Console, Personal Health Dashboard, API integration usage, CloudWatch logs and the Amazon CloudTrail service that retains activity data for later auditing.

Many businesses that use AWS still have an on-premises server setup, and the company’s various tools and services help them move their data, databases and applications to the cloud without interruption. For instance, Amazon Migration Hub helps them centrally oversee and monitor the process from end to end. The company also has a variety of options that allow business users to establish additional protections for their most sensitive data.