Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary company of Amazon, offering pay-as-you-go APIs and on-demand cloud computing services. AWS is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and was founded in 2006. The company offers its services in eighty-four availability zones, in twenty-six geographic regions around the world. AWS's cloud infrastructure is intended to be a scalable and low-cost platform and is used in 190 countries around the world.

AWS was founded in 2006 as a side-business for Amazon and is a cloud infrastructure as a service arm of the company. It was not initially considered largely important, even though in the decade after its launch, AWS grew into the most successful cloud infrastructure company. AWS in 2021 accounted for 32.4 percent of the overall cloud infrastructure market, followed by Microsoft Azure at 20 percent and Google Cloud at 9 percent, and the next largest individual providers. AWS has been compared, in its business model and infrastructure services, with the utility companies that emerged in the early 1900s.

Notable customers using Amazon Web Services include BP, Cerner, Enel, Expedia, Finra, General Electric, Hess, Intuit, Kellog's, Philips, Time, and Workday.

The company offers cloud computing and API products and services for the following:

• Analytics
• Application integration
• Augmented reality
• Virtual reality
• Cost management
• Blockchain
• Business applications
• Computation
• Programming containers
• Customer engagement
• Databases
• Developer tools
• End user computing
• Gaming
• Internet of things (IOT)
• Machine learning
• Management and governance
• Media services
• Migration and transfer
• Mobile applications
• Networking and content delivery
• Quantum technologies
• Robotics
• Satellites
• Security
• Identity
• Compliance
• Datalakes
• Enterprise software
• Serverless computing
• Data storage

AWS offers its services to customers through a network of server farms located throughout the world, with fees for the services often based on the combination of usage—similar to a "pay-as-you-go" model—with hardware, operating system, software, and networking features chosen by the user. Other factors that can impact the price include the service, availability, redundancy, and security the user wants. AWS also provides some security for users, while it also holds the user responsible for other parts of their security.

The Amazon Web Services communications platform as a Service (CPaaS) is a newer part of the company's platform. It has been developed from strategic partnerships with companies, including Strategic Communications, and through acquisitions, such as the encrypted messaging platform Wickr. These have led to the development of a CPaaS that is directed towards contact centers through cloud deployments. This includes Amazon Connect, which is a customer service cloud contact center offering users tools for agents and managers through a unified interface, and offers features including telephony, high-quality audio, omnichannel outbound campaigns, predictive dialer with answering machine detection, web and mobile chat, omnichannel routing, and a rules engine for contact center automation.

The platform also uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide forecasting, capacity planning, and agent scheduling functionality for users, as well as administrative tools and real-time and historical analytics to help optimize the platform. As part of its CPaaS, AWS also offers AWS Communication Developer Services, which includes a set of SDKs and APIs that allow developers to embed customer communications into their applications. This includes application-to-person communications, asynchronous communications, and real-time communications with supported channels that include email, SMS, push notifications, chat, audio, video, and voice.