Getting started with Amazon Web Services

Stephanie de Albequerque, Community Manager, AWS shares the history of cloud computing, how we engage with cloud computing today, and the resources available to you as a small business within AWS.

Cloud Computing Basics

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the internet with a pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying, owning, and maintaining data centers and servers, you can access technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases on an as-needed basis from a cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services. You can think of the cloud like paying for your electricity bill. You pay for what you use - when you switch off the lights, you're no longer paying for it. This in contrast with traditional data centers. You don't need to provision IT resources months in advance. You don't need to keep assets that you don't need anymore. And there's far less need to forecast the demand for your IT resources because you can provision them in a matter of minutes.

Since its introduction over 16 years ago, AWS has been supporting businesses to become more agile in how they access IT resources, helping them save costs, increase agility and improve their security posture. You might not notice, but you're interacting with cloud technologies on a daily basis - from watching your favorite show on Netflix to the stats you see on the screen during a NFL game. These businesses are using  AWS cloud technology to power some of their most innovative features. These same resources are available to businesses of all sizes with the click of a button. Cloud is the great equalizer, giving businesses of any size access to the technology and services that enable you to respond to new industry dynamics, test new ideas, and bring products and services to market quickly.

Today, cloud computing has helped make IT resources more readily available . Learn about how you can get started with AWS and cloud computing as a small business below.

AWS Connected Community

Determining how to best use technology to create a competitive advantage is challenging, and identifying trusted resources adds to the burden. Successful businesses of any size, find joining a community of like-minded business leaders is an efficient way to get relevant information to facilitate the cloud decision journey.

That’s why AWS created the AWS Connected Community as the first cloud community for business leaders to connect, learn, and share—overcoming the common barriers of technology adoption, together. The AWS Connected Community brings together years of AWS expertise and the unique perspective of small and medium-sized businesses to give you an uncomplicated and interactive place to support your digital transformation.

Completely free to join and built specifically for businesses of your size, the AWS Connected Community is another way AWS helps you build a better business—securely, swiftly, collaboratively.

The AWS Connected Community offers the following benefits:

• A completely free to join community specifically for small and medium-sized businesses 
• Access to small business and cloud experts
• Up-to-date events and on-demand training 
• Opportunity to learn from peers 
• Exclusive offers for software and services tailored to your business needs

Learn more about the AWS Connected Community

AWS SkillBuilder

Get digital training and learn from AWS experts through AWS SkillBuilder.

Skill Builders is a Digital Training Library consists of over 500 courses, which are available on demand, anytime, anywhere. This includes foundational and advanced content across AWS services and solutions ML, IoT, Storage, and more. Because it is developed and built by AWS experts it is accurate, which ensures you use and deploys AWS services the right way.

Skill builder has digital training that is designed to meet your various needs:

• Expertise level: foundational, intermediate, and advanced.
• Role-based training, for example for AWS Architects, Developers, and Systems Operations.
• Domain-specific, such as Machine Learning, Storage, Internet of Things and much more. 

Visit skillbuilder.aws to learn more about our Digital Training.

Learn more at AWS Skillbuilder  

AWS Free Tier  

Get free, hands-on experience with the AWS platform, products, and services. If you are ready to get started using AWS,you can create an account and explore more than 100 products and start building on AWS using the Free Tier.. AWS Free Tier Benefits:

• Automatically activated for new AWS accounts
• Enjoy free-tier offers for 12-months following your initial sign-up date to AWS
• Applicable to 100 services * 

Learn more about the AWS Free Tier

*Not all AWS Services are covered under the Free Tier, check the Free Tier offering to make sure the services you intend to use are covered