AWS Cloud Network and Databases

Hi everyone, this article is about AWS Cloud Network and Database. The objective of this content is to provide basic understanding of its different terms and its use cases.

Basic AWS Networking

Let’s start with basic AWS networking.

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud(VPC) If you are a new user in AWS, Amazon VPC will be your staring point for creating a network. It serves as a private space in your AWS Cloud

Key components of a VPC Image Description

Public Subnet: A subnet that is accessible from the internet. Resources deployed in this subnet can be configured for external access beyond your cloud infrastructure.
Private Subnet: A subnet that is restricted to internal access within the VPC. Resources here are not directly reachable from the internet.
Route Tables: Define how network traffic is directed based on the destination subnet. The entries in a route table, called routes, determine the path for network traffic originating from your subnets. Each subnet must be linked to one route table, and only one route table can be associated with a subnet.
Internet Gateway: Enables connectivity between resources inside the VPC and the internet, supporting bidirectional traffic.
Security Groups: Function as virtual firewalls for instances, controlling inbound and outbound traffic at the instance level. They allow you to define permitted protocols, ports, and source/destination IP ranges. Security Groups are stateful, meaning they automatically allow return traffic.
Network Access Control Lists (NACLs): Add an extra layer of security at the subnet level. Unlike Security Groups, NACLs are stateless and can explicitly allow or deny traffic based on protocol, port, and source/destination IP addresses.

Other AWS Network Services: Image Description Amazon Route 53: A highly reliable and advanced DNS service from AWS that routes end users to applications hosted on AWS by resolving domain names to their corresponding IP addresses.

Benefits:
- Advanced Traffic Routing: Supports geolocation routing, latency-based routing, and weighted round-robin routing for optimized performance.
- Health Checks: Continuously monitors the health of your resources to ensure availability.
- DNS Failover: Automatically redirects users to a backup location in the event of resource failure.
- Scalability and Integration: Automatically adjusts to meet demand and integrates seamlessly with other AWS services.
Use Cases:
- Routing traffic for web applications.
- Load balancing across multiple resources.
- Managing global traffic distribution.
- Registering and managing domain names.
- Providing private DNS services for Amazon VPC, enabling hostname management within your VPC.

AWS Direct Connect: Establishes a dedicated private connection from your data center to AWS Cloud infrastructure without using the public internet.

Benefits:
- High-Speed Data Transfer: Optimized for quickly and reliably transferring large volumes of data.
- Lower Bandwidth Costs: Offers a more cost-effective solution for extensive data transfer compared to internet-based alternatives.
- Reliable Connectivity: Provides consistent performance without disruptions from public internet traffic.

AWS VPN: Ensures secure, encrypted connectivity to your AWS Cloud infrastructure via the public internet.

Types:
- Site-to-Site VPN: Creates a secure, encrypted connection between your on-premises data center or branch office and AWS.
- Client VPN: Enables secure, remote access for individual devices to AWS resources or private networks from any location, functioning like a remote access VPN.

If you’re looking to enhance your AWS network, consider using its Content Delivery Network (CDN), a global network of interconnected servers designed to deliver your website’s content to users quickly and efficiently.

AWS CloudFront: AWS’s premier CDN, designed to deliver videos, applications, and data with low latency and high transfer speeds. It caches content in edge locations—data centers closer to end users—and integrates with AWS security tools like AWS Shield and AWS Web Application Firewall. It also optimizes other services such as S3, EC2, and Route 53.

Benefits:
- Speed: Simplifies deployment and maintenance of file systems for faster content delivery.
- Reliability: Automatically scales to meet demand without application disruption.
- Global Reach: Supports simultaneous access from multiple EC2 instances to enhance availability.
Use Cases:
- Streaming videos.
- Secure transactions.
- Managing traffic spikes.
- Generating detailed analytics.

Additionally, AWS offers the Global Accelerator, a networking service that routes user traffic through AWS’s global network infrastructure to improve application performance and availability.

Benefits:
- Improved Performance: Boosts throughput by up to 60%.
- Simplified Traffic Management: Provides static IP addresses for easy access to application endpoints.
- Security and Reliability: Features built-in DDoS resiliency and automatic traffic rerouting.
- Consistent Global User Experience: Uses intelligent routing to direct user traffic to the best performing endpoint.
Use Cases:
- Applications with a global user base.
- Handling high traffic events.
- Multi-region deployments.
- Latency sensitive applications.

AWS Databases

Now let’s move to AWS Databases.

Image Description

Types of AWS Databases:

Relational Database - Amazon RDS
A structured database that organizes data into rows and columns, similar to tables, and is managed by AWS.
- Use Cases:
  - E-commerce
  - Mobile backends
  - Healthcare applications
NoSQL Database - DynamoDB
Stores data in key-value pairs for quick and flexible access. Ideal for applications with unstructured data and dynamic schemas.
- Key Features:
  - Scales up and down to maintain performance and capacity.
  - Handles high traffic and large data volumes.
  - Provides low-latency, single-digit millisecond response times.
- Benefits:
  - Performance at Scale: Consistent, fast performance.
  - Fully Managed: Eliminates the need for server management.
  - Built-in Security: Data encryption at rest and in transit.
  - Backup and Restore: Supports both on-demand and continuous backups.
- Use Cases:
  - Web and mobile applications.
  - IoT applications.
  - E-commerce platforms.
In-Memory Databases - Amazon MemoryDB
Store data in RAM for ultra-fast read and write speeds compared to traditional storage solutions.
- Amazon MemoryDB: Redis compatible, fully managed in-memory database for modern applications requiring real-time access.
  - Benefits:
    - Performance: Handles up to 13 trillion requests daily and supports peaks of 160 million requests per second.
    - Data Durability: Automatically replicates data across multiple AWS Availability Zones.
  - Use Cases:
    - Web application caching.
    - Real-time analytics.
    - Session storage for applications.
    - Gaming leaderboards.
    - Geospatial data processing.
Graph Database - Amazon Neptune
Stores and presents data as a graph, excelling at managing complex relationships and interconnections. Managed by AWS.
- Use Cases:
  - Fraud detection.
  - Recommendation systems.
  - Optimizing IT Security.

If you need to migrate your on-premises database to AWS, consider using AWS Database Migration Service (DMS).

Features:
- Wide Compatibility: Supports various data sources such as Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.
- Minimized Downtime: Designed to keep downtime to a minimum by continuously replicating data during the migration process, ensuring the source database remains operational.
- Ease of Use: Requires no drivers or changes to the source database, making the migration process straightforward.
- Reliable: Features self-healing capabilities with constant monitoring for a smooth migration experience.
- Database Consolidation: Enables the consolidation of multiple databases into a single target database.
Use Cases:
- Migrating between database platforms:
  - Homogeneous migrations (e.g. Oracle to Oracle).
  - Heterogeneous migrations (e.g. Oracle to Amazon Aurora).
- Consolidating multiple databases into one.
- Continuous data replication for real-time synchronization.
- Migrating data to AWS for analytics, such as transferring data to Amazon Redshift for advanced analytics.
- Decommissioning data centers by moving on-premises databases to AWS.

AWS also offers a Schema Conversion Tool(SCT) to assist in schema conversion, ensuring compatibility of your original database schema with AWS target databases.

Features:
- Schema and Code Conversion: Automatically converts source database schemas to match AWS target formats.
- Conversion challenges handling: Identifies and provides solutions for potential conversion issues during migration.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can explore the comprehensive AWS documentation available at this link https://docs.aws.amazon.com/