AWS Managed Services Every Solution Architect Must Know: Business Use Cases & Real-World Examples
Compute Services
- Amazon EC2 (with Managed Scaling like Auto Scaling Groups)
- Business Use Case: Lift-and-shift of legacy apps, ML training workloads.
- Real Example: A bank migrating its risk engine to EC2 Auto Scaling for compliance while keeping OS-level control.
- Amazon ECS (with Fargate)
- Business Use Case: Running containerized microservices without managing servers.
- Real Example: A food delivery startup scaling order/payment APIs on ECS Fargate during peak hours.
- Amazon EKS (Managed Kubernetes)
- Business Use Case: Enterprises adopting Kubernetes for portability & hybrid cloud.
- Real Example: Pharma company running clinical trial workloads on EKS across AWS + on-prem.
- AWS Lambda (Serverless)
- Business Use Case: Event-driven apps, data processing pipelines.
- Real Example: E-commerce app running image resize + fraud detection instantly without provisioning servers.
2️⃣ Storage Services
- Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service)
- Business Use Case: Data lake, backups, static websites.
- Real Example: Netflix stores petabytes of media on S3 with lifecycle policies.
- Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)
- Business Use Case: Shared POSIX file system for containers & EC2.
- Real Example: Media company using EFS for video editing teams across multiple AZs.
- Amazon FSx (Lustre, Windows File Server, NetApp ONTAP)
- Business Use Case: High-performance workloads (HPC, SAP).
- Real Example: Automotive company runs simulations on FSx for Lustre with HPC clusters.
3️⃣ Database Services
- Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service)
- Business Use Case: Managed MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server.
- Real Example: Fintech startup deploying RDS PostgreSQL for transactional workloads with Multi-AZ.
- Amazon DynamoDB
- Business Use Case: NoSQL database for low-latency, high-scale apps.
- Real Example: Gaming company stores user profiles & scores in DynamoDB with millisecond latency.
- Amazon Aurora
- Business Use Case: Cloud-native relational DB with high performance.
- Real Example: Ride-hailing app runs millions of concurrent transactions with Aurora MySQL.
4️⃣ Networking & Content Delivery
- Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
- Business Use Case: Isolated networking environment for apps.
- Real Example: Healthcare provider deploying apps in HIPAA-compliant VPC with private subnets.
- Amazon CloudFront (CDN)
- Business Use Case: Deliver static & dynamic content globally.
- Real Example: E-learning platform delivering video courses globally with low latency.
- AWS Transit Gateway
- Business Use Case: Connect multiple VPCs and on-premises networks.
- Real Example: Global enterprise connects 100+ VPCs with a hub-and-spoke model.
5️⃣ Monitoring, Logging & Security
- Amazon CloudWatch
- Business Use Case: Monitor apps, set alarms, dashboards.
- Real Example: Retail company tracking API latency in CloudWatch to auto-scale ECS tasks.
- AWS Config & CloudTrail
- Business Use Case: Governance, compliance, auditing.
- Real Example: Financial firm auditing changes in IAM policies for regulatory compliance.
- AWS Shield & WAF
- Business Use Case: DDoS protection, web security.
- Real Example: Ticket booking site protecting against traffic spikes & SQL injection attempts.
6️⃣ Analytics & AI/ML
- Amazon Athena
- Business Use Case: Query data directly from S3 (serverless SQL).
- Real Example: Media house analyzing clickstream logs in S3 without ETL.
- Amazon Redshift
- Business Use Case: Data warehousing & BI analytics.
- Real Example: E-commerce giant analyzing sales trends across regions.
- Amazon SageMaker
- Business Use Case: Build, train & deploy ML models.
- Real Example: Healthcare startup predicting patient health outcomes using SageMaker.
7️⃣ Migration & Hybrid Services
- AWS DMS (Database Migration Service)
- Business Use Case: Migrate databases to AWS with minimal downtime.
- Real Example: Insurance company moving Oracle DB to Aurora.
- AWS Storage Gateway
- Business Use Case: Hybrid storage between on-prem & cloud.
- Real Example: Manufacturing company archiving data to S3 via gateway.
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