11 Reasons Why AWS is the Right Choice of Data & Analytics Platform for Your Business

Cloud computing providers are striving to meet the ever-increasing computing needs worldwide. And the race to the top has narrowed down to three gigantic horses: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, and Google Computing (GCP). While all of these have pros and cons of this cloud web services comparison, AWS wins clearly in the most crucial areas.

AWS has continued to accumulate the most experience for almost 18 years now. Read on to understand why this delivers the best cloud computing experience.

Why Is AWS So Popular For Data & Analytics Platform

AWS has become a leading choice for businesses across industries for data and analytics applications.

However, the main question arises: Why AWS Cloud? Because of its large base of customers, wide range of tools and services, and frequent updates, AWS has demonstrated itself to be a powerful all-around platform for data and analytics workloads. Moreover, it possesses several distinct advantages that cannot be overlooked: scalability, flexibility, and affordability all of which can help the success and growth of your business.

As a cloud-based platform with massive data storage capabilities and global accessibility, AWS Data Analytics offers a comprehensive suite of services with low operating costs. That's why so many companies have chosen Amazon Web Services as their sole provider; it ticks all the boxes needed when seeking an effective solution for data management or analytics in any field of operation. Therefore if you seek reliable data analytics for business at a reasonable cost, then AWS is worth considering. 

Below are 11 reasons why you should choose the AWS data analytics platform

1. Establishment

Unlike its competitors, AWS has had a significant head start in the cloud computing industry. Launched in 2006, it established itself as a pioneer, offering key services like Simple Storage Service (S3) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) from the outset. This early entry allowed them to refine their offerings and build a robust infrastructure, setting a high bar for others to follow.

By 2009, AWS further expanded its portfolio with additional services like Content Delivery Network (CDN), Amazon CloudFront, and Elastic Block Store (EBS). This early diversification solidified their position as a comprehensive cloud platform, providing solutions for diverse needs.

While competitors like Azure (2010) and GCP (2008) entered the market later, AWS's 18-year head start translates to significant experience in building, scaling, and evolving cloud infrastructure. This advantage in experience allows them to offer a more mature and well-established platform, with proven reliability, security, and scalability.

‍2. Availability Zones‍

AWS's early entry into the cloud market has significantly benefited its geographical reach. With 31 regions and 99 Availability Zones (AZs), they offer the most extensive global footprint among major cloud providers. This translates to a high probability of finding an AWS region closer to your users, minimizing latency and improving performance.

Furthermore, AWS continues to expand aggressively, with plans for 15 new Availability Zones and 5 additional regions in key markets like Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Thailand. This demonstrates their commitment to providing localized, low-latency cloud services to a wider global audience.

While other providers like Microsoft Azure operate in 60+ regions with minimum three AZs per region, and Google Cloud Platform offers 27 regions and 82 AZs, AWS's combined footprint and expansion plans remain unmatched.

‍3. Market Shares

AWS's dominance in the cloud market remains undeniable. As of Q3 2023, according to Synergy Research Group, AWS holds a 32% share of the global cloud infrastructure market, followed by Microsoft Azure at 23% and Google Cloud Platform at 8%.

This leadership is further solidified by the high-profile brands that trust AWS. Major corporations like BMW, Zynga, Samsung, MI, Unilever, Airbnb, and Netflix rely on AWS for their cloud infrastructure, showcasing its reliability, scalability, and advanced features.

While competitors like Azure and Google Cloud are growing rapidly, AWS's market leadership and proven track record remain significant advantages. Additionally, the trust and confidence of leading brands further validate AWS's reliability and value proposition.

‍4. Ease of Use

AWS shines in its focus on user experience, making cloud management accessible to anyone. Upon registering, you're greeted by the AWS Management Console, a modern and intuitive interface that simplifies navigating the vast array of services and applications. Whether you're migrating software, deploying a SaaS solution, or simply hosting a website, you don't require expert IT skills.

Here's what makes AWS a breeze to use:

• Simplified Dashboard: The console is visually appealing and organized, minimizing the learning curve for new users.
• Guided Workflows: Step-by-step wizards and tutorials walk you through complex tasks, even for beginners.
• Seamless Integration: AWS integrates seamlessly with popular third-party tools and platforms, reducing friction in your workflow.
• Extensive Documentation: Comprehensive documentation, code samples, and interactive tutorials are readily available for every service and feature, empowering you to find answers and solutions independently.
• Thriving Community: A large and active community of AWS users and experts provides valuable support through forums, blogs, and social media, ensuring you're never alone.

While competitors like:

GCP: offer a highly automated platform, its proprietary nature and focus on abstraction can be overwhelming, requiring deeper technical expertise.

Azure: can present challenges for beginners due to its complex resource management system. Experts like Nigel Frank have highlighted the need for better user guidance on fundamental principles.

AWS's commitment to user-friendliness is evident in its intuitive interface, accessible resources, and thriving community. This focus on simplicity empowers users of all skill levels to leverage the cloud's potential and achieve their business goals.

‍5. Pricing

While affordability is often cited as a key advantage of AWS, it's important to approach this point with nuance and accurate information.

AWS offers a variety of pricing models to cater to diverse needs and budgets:

• On-Demand Instances: Pay only for the resources you use, ideal for short-term workloads or testing.
• Reserved Instances: Commit to a usage level for a discounted rate, good for predictable workloads.
• Spot Instances: Bid for unused capacity at significant discounts, perfect for cost-sensitive tasks.
• Savings Plans: Pre-pay for a set amount of usage over a time period for significant savings on compute resources.

AWS's pricing structure is generally considered more flexible than Azure, allowing you to optimize your costs based on your specific needs. As your usage increases, you can take advantage of volume discounts and committed use models for further savings.

While Google Cloud Platform (GCP) might offer occasional deep discounts, it's crucial to consider the overall value proposition. AWS's mature and robust services often justify their pricing, particularly for mission-critical workloads. Additionally, AWS's proven track record in security and compliance might outweigh short-term cost savings offered by other providers.

By avoiding generalizations and providing a balanced perspective on pricing, you can create a more accurate and compelling argument for AWS's affordability and value for potential users.

‍6. Services and Features

AWS's long-standing presence in the cloud market translates to a significant advantage in terms of service offerings. With over 200 services spanning various categories (compute, storage, networking, databases, analytics, machine learning, AI, etc.), AWS offers the most comprehensive and feature-rich cloud platform in the industry.

However, it's important to move beyond simply counting services and consider the depth and maturity of those offerings. AWS's services are generally recognized as well-developed, robust, and feature-rich, with a proven track record of reliability and scalability. This ensures that users can find the right tools for their specific needs and achieve optimal results.

While competitors like:

• Azure: offers a respectable selection of over 100 services, it can't quite match the breadth and depth of AWS. Some users might find the Azure service catalog more focused on specific areas like enterprise IT and hybrid cloud solutions.
• GCP: boasts around 60 services, emphasizing innovation and specialization. However, this limited scope might not cater to users seeking a comprehensive and versatile cloud platform for diverse needs.

AWS's commitment to continuous innovation ensures that its service portfolio constantly evolves, keeping pace with industry trends and user needs. This dedication to staying ahead of the curve further strengthens its position as the most comprehensive and future-proof cloud platform.

‍7. Security

AWS's position as a leader in the cloud market extends to its commitment to security. Years of experience facing evolving cyber threats have resulted in a robust and layered security infrastructure that protects customer data and workloads. This translates to several key advantages:

• Proven track record: AWS has weathered numerous security challenges and proactively adapts its defenses to stay ahead of evolving threats. This experience builds user confidence and fosters trust in the platform.
• Comprehensive security services: AWS offers a wide range of built-in security features and services, including encryption, access control, threat detection, and incident response. These tools empower users to implement robust security postures without extensive technical expertise.
• Focus on secure defaults: AWS prioritizes secure configurations by default, minimizing the risk of inadvertent security vulnerabilities. This allows users to focus on their business objectives while knowing their data is protected.
• Granular control and visibility: AWS provides granular control over user access and security policies through features like Identity and Access Management (IAM) and security groups. This enables users to tailor their security posture to their specific needs and maintain full visibility and control over their data.

AWS's commitment to security goes beyond technology. They invest heavily in security research, education, and best-practice guidance, empowering users with the knowledge and tools to secure their cloud environments. This holistic approach to security makes AWS a trusted partner for organizations of all sizes and industries.

‍8. Reliability

In the cloud, uptime is everything. AWS has built a reputation for unwavering reliability, delivering consistent and dependable service to its customers. This advantage stems from several key factors:

• Global infrastructure: AWS boasts a massive global infrastructure with multiple Availability Zones (AZs) spread across diverse regions. This redundancy ensures service continuity even during regional outages, minimizing disruption to your operations.
• Continuous innovation: AWS prioritizes continuous investment in its infrastructure and technologies. This proactive approach minimizes the risk of vulnerabilities and ensures your applications and data remain accessible.
• Rigorous testing and validation: AWS subjects its services to rigorous testing and validation procedures before public release. This commitment to quality control minimizes the likelihood of service disruptions and ensures a reliable experience for users.

While competitors like:

• Azure: have improved their reliability in recent years, they still struggle to match AWS's track record. Outages in 2019 and 2023 raised concerns about their consistency, particularly for mission-critical applications.
• GCP: is also a growing platform and has invested heavily in reliability. However, their overall infrastructure and experience in handling large-scale operations are not yet on par with AWS, leading to potential concerns for users seeking absolute service uptime guarantees.

Gartner's research consistently ranks AWS as a leader in cloud infrastructure reliability. This independent validation further strengthens AWS's position as the most dependable platform for businesses seeking to ensure uninterrupted service delivery and optimal performance.

‍9. Scalable Data Lakes

Building and maintaining a data lake can be a complex and resource-intensive task. AWS understands this challenge and offers a game-changing solution: AWS Lake Formation. This fully managed service simplifies and accelerates data lake management, allowing you to:

• Set up your data lake in days, not months: Eliminate the need for manual configuration and complex scripting. AWS Lake Formation automatically provisions the necessary resources and configures them for optimal performance.
• Centralize data management: Consolidate data from diverse sources into a single, secure location, making it readily accessible for analytics and insights.
• Simplify data governance and access control: Implement robust security features and granular access controls to ensure data privacy and compliance.
• Scale effortlessly: Easily accommodate growing data volumes without any downtime or performance impact. AWS Lake Formation automatically scales your data lake to meet your evolving needs.

Amazon S3, the foundation of AWS Lake Formation, serves as the ideal storage platform for your data lake. Its advantages include:

• Unmatched durability and high availability: Secure your data with 99.999999999% durability and automatic multi-region replication, ensuring resilience against outages or hardware failures.
• Cost-effective storage: Choose from a variety of storage tiers to optimize costs based on your data access patterns. Pay only for the storage you use, starting at less than $1/TB/month.
• Granular access control and security: Implement role-based access control (RBAC) and detailed audit logging to ensure data security and compliance with industry regulations.
• Powerful data management capabilities: Leverage features like lifecycle management, encryption, and data replication for comprehensive data protection and efficient management.

While competitors like:

• Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS): offers similar capabilities, its pricing can be more complex and lack the flexibility of AWS's tiered storage options. Additionally, its integration with other Azure services might not be as seamless as AWS Lake Formation's tight integration with the broader AWS ecosystem.
• GCP Cloud Storage: provides a scalable storage platform, but its data lake management tools like Dataproc and BigQuery might require more technical expertise to set up and manage compared to the user-friendly AWS Lake Formation.

By combining the power of AWS Lake Formation with the scalability and affordability of Amazon S3, you can build and manage a robust data lake that empowers your business with valuable insights, unlocks new opportunities for innovation, and adapts seamlessly to your growing data needs.

‍10. Seamless Data Movement

Data mobility is crucial in today's data-driven world, and AWS empowers organizations to seamlessly move and manage data between their data lakes and diverse purpose-built data stores. This unlocks new possibilities for analytics, machine learning, and application development, enabling you to:

• Combine and replicate data: Consolidate data from various sources, including data lakes, on-premises databases, and SaaS applications, into a unified workspace for comprehensive analysis.
• Migrate data with ease: Leverage AWS services like AWS Data Pipeline and Transfer to efficiently migrate data to your preferred data lake or data store.
• Simplify data preparation: AWS Glue, a serverless data integration service, automates data preparation tasks, eliminating the need for manual coding and tedious scripting.
• Federated query capabilities: Access data from multiple sources simultaneously without complex ETL pipelines or data movement. Services like Amazon Redshift and Athena offer federated querying, allowing you to analyze data directly in its native location.

‍11. Performance And Cost-Effectiveness

AWS understands that organizations need both high-performance analytics and cost efficiency. That's why they've designed their services to deliver best-in-class performance while keeping your wallet happy. Here's how:

• S3 Intelligent Tiering: This innovative technology automatically moves your data lake storage to the most cost-effective storage tier based on access patterns, potentially saving you up to 70% on storage costs.
• Broadest Instance Selection: Amazon EC2 boasts over 200 instance types, providing a perfect match for your specific workload and budget. Choose from diverse options, including compute-optimized, memory-intensive, and network-optimized instances, with maximum network bandwidth reaching a staggering 100 Gbps.
• Amazon Redshift RA3 with Managed Storage: This flexible option allows you to fine-tune your Redshift performance and scale compute and storage independently, ensuring you pay only for the resources you use.
• AQUA: The Analytics Accelerator: This powerhouse technology can turbocharge your Redshift queries, delivering up to 10x faster performance. AQUA optimizes compression, encryption, and data processing tasks, allowing Redshift to scale efficiently and break through performance bottlenecks.

This commitment to performance and cost-effectiveness extends across all AWS analytics services:

• Amazon Athena: Serverless queries at scale with pay-per-query pricing.
• Amazon Kinesis: Real-time data analytics with flexible pricing options.
• Amazon EMR: Big data processing with a variety of cost-effective instance types.

By leveraging AWS's advanced technologies and flexible pricing models, you can achieve:

• Faster insights: Get answers to your critical questions in a fraction of the time.
• Reduced costs: Optimize your cloud spend and avoid unnecessary expenses.
• Improved agility: Scale your analytics resources up or down seamlessly to match your needs.
• Greater innovation: Focus on your business goals while AWS handles the underlying infrastructure.

By focusing on the concrete benefits of AWS's performance and cost-effectiveness, you can create a compelling argument for businesses seeking to maximize the value of their analytics investments.

‍Wrapping Up

As businesses continue to look for a better data and analytics platform, AWS stands out with its various benefits. This article outlined 11 compelling reasons why you should use AWS for your business needs: scalability, reliability, security, cost-effectiveness and more. Look no further than AWS for your data and analytics solution! Choose AWS to enjoy its expertise and experience built over the years.

Take your data and analytics workloads to the next level by partnering with Agilisium, an AWS-exclusive partner. At Agilisium, we provide clients with a highly dependable, protected and expansive cloud services to explore their business data. Our Analytics Services are designed to help you uncover digital opportunities and use them to create better products and services for your clients. Let's get started today - reach out to us now!