AWS
71 AWS terms explained simply, ordered from basic to advanced. Start at the top if the topic is new to you.
Basic
Amazon Bedrock
A single AWS service to call AI models from Anthropic, Meta, Amazon and others.
Amazon CloudFront
AWS's CDN: copies of your content kept close to users all over the world.
Amazon CloudWatch
The dashboard and alarm system that watches everything running in your AWS account.
Amazon DynamoDB
A key-value database that answers in milliseconds no matter how big the table gets.
Amazon EC2
Virtual computers you rent by the hour, in any size, and switch off when done.
Amazon Lightsail
The simple corner of AWS: a ready-made server for a flat monthly price.
Amazon Q
AWS's AI assistant for writing code and for answering questions about company data.
Amazon RDS
A ready-made relational database that AWS keeps patched, backed up and running.
Amazon Route 53
AWS's DNS service: it turns your domain name into the address of your servers.
Amazon S3
A giant online drawer for files, rented by the gigabyte.
Amazon WorkSpaces
A full Windows or Linux desktop that lives in AWS and that you open from any device.
AWS account and billing
What an AWS account is, how you get charged, and how to avoid a surprise bill.
AWS Amplify
A shortcut for building and publishing web and mobile apps on AWS.
AWS Cost Explorer
The AWS screen that shows what you spent, on what, and what you will likely spend.
AWS Lambda
Run a piece of code only when something happens, with no server to manage.
AWS Marketplace
An online store where you buy other companies' software and pay through your AWS bill.
AWS Snowball
A rugged box AWS shipped to you to move huge amounts of data by truck instead of internet.
AWS Trusted Advisor
An automatic checkup of your AWS account with tips to save money and stay safe.
IAM
The rulebook that says who can do what in your AWS account.
Regions and Availability Zones
Where AWS physically lives: cities worldwide, each split into separate data centers.
Intermediate
Amazon API Gateway
The front door of your API: it receives requests and passes them to your code.
Amazon Athena
Run SQL directly on files sitting in S3, with no database to set up.
Amazon Cognito
Sign-up, login and passwords for your app, handled by AWS instead of you.
Amazon Connect
A cloud contact center from AWS: phone lines, chat, bots and agents, paid as you use it.
Amazon EBS
The virtual hard drive of an EC2 instance, kept alive even when the instance stops.
Amazon ECR
A private warehouse on AWS for your container images, ready to be deployed.
Amazon ECS and Fargate
AWS runs your containers; with Fargate you never see the servers at all.
Amazon EFS
A shared network folder in AWS that many servers can use at the same time.
Amazon ElastiCache
A managed in-memory cache that keeps hot data close so apps answer instantly.
Amazon EventBridge
A switchboard that routes "something happened" messages to whoever cares.
Amazon GuardDuty
An AWS service that watches your account's activity and flags signs of an attack.
Amazon Inspector
An AWS service that keeps scanning your servers and code for known vulnerabilities.
Amazon Macie
An AWS service that finds sensitive data in your S3 buckets and flags risky buckets.
Amazon MQ
ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ message brokers, run for you by AWS.
Amazon OpenSearch Service
Managed search engine on AWS, for site search boxes and digging through logs.
Amazon Polly
An AWS service that turns written text into spoken audio.
Amazon QuickSight
AWS's tool for turning company data into charts and dashboards people can explore.
Amazon Redshift
AWS's data warehouse: SQL over huge tables, built for analysis rather than apps.
Amazon Rekognition
An AWS service that looks at images and videos and says what is in them.
Amazon SageMaker
The AWS workshop for building, training and serving machine learning models.
Amazon SES
The AWS service apps use to send email in bulk: receipts, alerts, newsletters.
Amazon SNS
One message in, many copies out: a megaphone for systems.
Amazon SQS
A waiting line for messages between programs, so none of them gets lost.
Amazon Textract
An AWS service that reads scanned documents and pulls out text, forms and tables.
Amazon Transcribe
An AWS service that listens to audio and writes down what was said.
Amazon VPC
Your own private slice of the AWS network, with walls you draw yourself.
AWS Backup
One place to schedule, keep and restore backups of your AWS data.
AWS Batch
An AWS service that runs big piles of jobs and rents the machines only while they work.
AWS CloudFormation
Describe your AWS infrastructure in a text file; AWS builds it exactly like that.
AWS CloudTrail
The logbook of an AWS account: who did what, when, and from where.
AWS Config
An AWS service that records how your resources are set up and checks them against rules.
AWS DataSync
An AWS service that copies large amounts of files over the network, and checks they arrived intact.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Upload your web app's code and AWS sets up the servers to run it.
AWS Glue
AWS's service for finding, describing and cleaning up data, with no servers to run.
AWS IAM Identity Center
One sign-in for a company's people to reach all its AWS accounts and apps.
AWS KMS
AWS's vault for encryption keys: you use them, but they never leave.
AWS Organizations
One place to group, govern and pay for many AWS accounts at once.
AWS Secrets Manager
A locked vault for passwords and API keys, so they never live in your code.
AWS Security Hub
One place where AWS gathers security alerts from many services and ranks them.
AWS Shield
AWS's protection against DDoS attacks, on by default for everyone.
AWS Systems Manager
A toolbox for running, patching and logging into a whole fleet of servers at once.
AWS WAF
A filter in front of your website that reads each request and blocks the bad ones.
AWS Well-Architected Framework
AWS's checklist of good practices for building systems in the cloud that hold up.
Reserved instances and Savings Plans
Cheaper cloud prices in exchange for promising to keep using it for one or three years.
Spot instances
Spare cloud servers rented at a deep discount, but taken back on short notice.
Advanced
Amazon EKS
Kubernetes with the hard part, the control plane, run by AWS.
AWS CDK
Describe your AWS infrastructure in a real programming language instead of YAML.
AWS Direct Connect
A private, dedicated network link from your own building straight into AWS.
AWS Global Accelerator
Fixed IP addresses that pull users onto AWS's own network near them and route to a healthy region.
AWS Outposts
AWS hardware installed in your own building, run by AWS as part of a Region.
AWS Step Functions
A flowchart that runs: it chains steps, retries failures and remembers where it was.