Individual Project: Shared Value and Global Issues in Strategy

Amazon Web Services

Lakshmi Immadisetty

Harrisburg University, PA

Abstract

In this document I am taking Amazon web services also known as AWS as an example to showcase on how Amazon came up with their cloud computing services and software as a service to address some major issues that many companies face in this fast moving and highly advancing IT world.

Amazon Web Services known as AWS is a cloud computing solution by Amazon. Amazon is a global leader in e-commerce business. This company was found in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Seattle, Washington. This is a global scale company and operates in more than 15 counties. Their global strategy is to grow sales and make online shopping easy and reliable. Amazon has been very innovative in addressing global issues and solving them through their business strategy and their services. One of the major issue that Amazon identified in the world of Information technology is that the cost and maintenance of computing is very high especially for a large organization.

Today I am going to focus on how Amazon has evolved with its business strategies in addressing the environmental issues through IT. It all started with the concept of virtualizing the IT infrastructure. The traditional way for companies to manage their IT infrastructure is to build their own rack servers, datacenters, manage storage, network etc. and managing a datacenter is not easy. It needs 24/7 monitoring, workforce round the clock, storage administrators, network administrators at different levels etc. Due to the fast-growing technologies in this fast-moving world, keeping the in-house technology up to date is very difficult and involves lot of cost. This is a major issue for global companies because the technology is advancing and they have to keep up with the technology to stay alive in the market otherwise the company would perish.

To overcome cost companies like VMWare introduced virtualization and this was a very cost-effective method that many companies adopted for a very long time. Instead of buying a new server or a buying a new machine every time, Virtualization helped in virtualizing a single machine hardware into multiple virtual machines. In a way, this solved the cost problem but still the maintenance is very high and you still have to buy new servers anyway to keep up the technology. This is all done through virualization software. The selling point for the virtualization is energy effeciant and the reducation of company’s carbon footprint. VMware estimated that by virtualization the enery saving can be as hign as up to 80 % and upto 4 tons of carbon dioxide is eliminated with single virtual server per year. Virtualization is very energy efficient and it is estimated that about 7000kWh energy can be saved with a single instance of virtual server per year.

Amazon identified this as a global issue and with their effective business strategy they introduced AWS. Although this is not the first company or the only company that introduces SAS or Software as a service but the products and services that AWS offers are very efficient and effective. AWS datacenter operates in 44 availability zones within 16 geographic regions. All the datacenter were build with most advanced energy efficient technology to use solar enegy and innovative cooling system that uses recycled water to run through the cooling system.

They have a huge range of web services to offer. Just like you order food online, you can order a machine online through AWS and have a wide range of server/machine specification selections like choosing RAM, Storage, Processor, network configuration etc. and the best part is that you pay per your usage. This is a very cost-effective method especially for R&D where you do lot of experimenting. Companies can save lot of cost and time with this service. This brings companies to focus on their core vision and budget instead of worrying about maintaining IT infrastructure. One of the disadvantage for larger companies is adapting the change because they have to give up their existing IT infrastructure to go for AWS.

Some of the products that AWS offer is computing, Storage, Databases, Networking, Developer tools, Management tools, security, AI, Mobile Services, Application Services, Business Productivity Desktop and Apps streaming, Internet of Things, Game Development, Analytics etc.

These services are very helpful for different kinds of fields, like software development, database administrations, storage administrations, Mobile platforms etc. This gives entrepreneur a chance to prove themselves effectively because most of the budding companies fail due to the lack of budget and high maintenance. AWS office services to the products you purchase and now you don’t have to worry about monitoring your server or monitoring your storage or monitoring you network. You can strictly focus on what you want to do and you can access your services from anywhere in world as long as you are connected to the web.

AWS is the best solution for cost effective cloud solutions in the market that address some major issues that many companies face in managing their IT infrastructure.

References

Image from google Images: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjYhq_E0d3XAhVJ9IMKHegWD2YQjhwIBQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsdtimes.com%2Famazon-aws-s3-outage-causing-widespread-issues-businesses%2F&psig=AOvVaw3x50XH6Be6lRWJtKVtTB9g&ust=1511833679945865

AWS: https://aws.amazon.com

https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-computing/

http://greeneconomypost.com/virtualization-green-technology-emerging-companies-4896.htm#ixzz50jYaGAVL

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg602472.aspx

http://www.govtech.com/pcio/Virtualization-Saves-Money-and-Energy-by.html