AWS Services Overview & Use Cases (Major List) | Overview.

twtech clear, comprehensive, organized overview of major AWS services and their primary use cases.

NB:

These services are categorized into different types based on their fault isolation boundaries:

•        Zonal,
•        Regional,
•        Global. 

Scope:

•        Compute,
•        Storage,
•        Databases,
•        Networking & Content Delivery,
•        Security, Identity, & Compliance,
•        DevOps, CI/CD, & Developer Tools,
•        Analytics,
•        Integration & Messaging,
•        AI/ML,
•        IoT,
•        Business Applications,
•        Application Integration,
•        Management & Governance,
•        Migration & Transfer,
•        Quantum & Emerging,

Intro:

·       Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a vast collection of over 200 fully featured services for:

•        Compute,
•        Storage,
•        Databases,
•        Networking,
•        Analytics,
•        Machine learning,
•        And many more.

Key service categories include:

Analytics:

•          Services such as Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon QuickSight help you process and analyze large datasets.

Application Integration:

•          This category includes services like Amazon SNS and Amazon SQS for communication between decoupled components and microservices.

Compute:

•         Offerings like Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), AWS Lambda (serverless computing), and Amazon ECS (Elastic Container Service) provide the processing power for applications.

Databases:

•          AWS offers a variety of database services, including Amazon RDS for relational databases, Amazon DynamoDB for NoSQL, and Amazon QLDB for ledgers.

Developer Tools:

•          Services such as AWS CodeCommit, AWS CodeBuild, and AWS CodeDeploy help automate the software release process.

Identity and Access Management:

•          AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) is a global service that helps you securely manage access to AWS resources across your accounts.

Machine Learning and AI:

•          This category encompasses services like Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Textract (for text and data extraction), and Amazon Q (an agentic AI assistant).

Security, Identity, and Compliance:

•          Services like AWS Secrets Manager, Amazon GuardDuty, and AWS Shield help protect your data and workloads.

Storage:

•          Key services include Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) for object storage, Amazon EBS for block storage, and Amazon EFS for file storage. 

NB:

For a full list and detailed descriptions, explore the official AWS services page for the AWS Documentation.

 https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/aws-overview/amazon-web-services-cloud-platform.html

 1. Compute

Service	Use Case
EC2	Virtual servers for any workload (web apps, databases, backend compute).
Auto Scaling	Automatically adjust compute capacity based on demand.
Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)	Distribute traffic across instances/containers.
AWS Lambda	Serverless functions; event-driven compute with no servers.
Amazon ECS	Run Docker containers at scale.
Amazon EKS	Managed Kubernetes.
AWS Fargate	Serverless containers for ECS/EKS.
AWS Outposts	AWS services on-prem (hybrid).
AWS Batch	Batch/compute-intensive job orchestration.
Lightsail	Simple hosting for small apps/websites.

 2. Storage

Service	Use Case
S3	Object storage for data lakes, backups, static websites.
EBS	Block storage for EC2 (disks).
EFS	Scalable shared file system for EC2.
FSx	Windows file servers, Lustre, NetApp ONTAP.
Glacier	Archival cold storage with low cost.
AWS Backup	Centralized backup automation.

 3. Databases

Service	Use Case
RDS	Managed SQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server).
Aurora	High-performance MySQL/Postgres-compatible DB.
DynamoDB	NoSQL key-value & document store; massive scale.
ElastiCache	Redis/Memcached for caching.
Neptune	Graph database.
DocumentDB	MongoDB-compatible NoSQL database.
Redshift	Data warehouse for analytics.
Keyspaces	Cassandra-compatible NoSQL.
Timestream	Time-series data (IoT, metrics).

🌐 4. Networking & Content Delivery

Service	Use Case
VPC	Private network environment in AWS.
Route 53	DNS, domain registration, routing.
CloudFront	Global CDN for caching and acceleration.
API Gateway	Managed API hosting for REST, HTTP, WebSocket.
Direct Connect	Private dedicated on-prem ↔ AWS connectivity.
Global Accelerator	Improve global application latency.
PrivateLink	Private connectivity to AWS services/SaaS.
Transit Gateway	Central hub for VPC and on-prem routing.
Elastic IPs	Static public IP addresses.

 5. Security, Identity, & Compliance

Service	Use Case
IAM	Access control and permissions.
Cognito	User authentication for apps.
KMS	Key management and encryption.
CloudHSM	Hardware-based key storage.
Secrets Manager	Store and rotate secrets.
AWS Shield	DDoS protection.
AWS WAF	Web firewall for L7 protection.
GuardDuty	Threat detection and monitoring.
Security Hub	Centralized security posture dashboard.
Inspector	Automated security assessments.
Macie	Data security and PII detection.

 6. DevOps, CI/CD, & Developer Tools

Service	Use Case
CodeCommit	Git repositories.
CodeBuild	Build/compile/test automation.
CodeDeploy	Automated deployment to EC2/Lambda/ECS.
CodePipeline	CI/CD pipeline orchestration.
CloudFormation	Infrastructure-as-code provisioning.
CDK	IaC using programming languages.
Systems Manager (SSM)	Patch, automate, and manage fleet operations.
Elastic Beanstalk	Easy deployment for apps (PaaS).
Cloud9	Cloud-based IDE.
X-Ray	Distributed tracing for debugging.

 7. Analytics

Service	Use Case
Athena	SQL queries on S3 data (serverless).
EMR	Big data processing (Spark, Hadoop).
Glue	ETL service (data catalog + crawler).
Kinesis	Real-time streaming and analytics.
QuickSight	BI dashboards and reporting.
OpenSearch	Search, logging, operational analytics.
Lake Formation	Build and secure data lakes.

 8. Integration & Messaging

Service	Use Case
SNS	Publish/subscribe messaging (notifications).
SQS	Message queues (decoupling microservices).
EventBridge	Event bus for serverless event-driven apps.
Step Functions	Workflow orchestration for microservices.
MQ	Managed message brokers (ActiveMQ/RabbitMQ).

 9. AI/ML

Service	Use Case
SageMaker	End-to-end machine learning workflows.
Rekognition	Image/video analysis.
Comprehend	NLP, sentiment analysis.
Lex	Chatbots and conversational interfaces.
Polly	Text-to-speech.
Transcribe	Speech-to-text.
Translate	Language translation.
Textract	Document text extraction (OCR).
Bedrock	Foundation models & generative AI.
Kendra	Enterprise search.

 10. IoT

Service	Use Case
IoT Core	Connect/manage IoT devices.
IoT Greengrass	Edge compute for IoT.
IoT Analytics	Analyze IoT data.
FleetHub / Device Management	Manage large device fleets.

 11. Business Applications

Service	Use Case
Chime	Video conferencing & communications.
WorkSpaces	Cloud virtual desktops (VDI).
AppStream 2.0	Stream desktop apps.
WorkDocs	Document collaboration.
WorkMail	Secure business email.

 12. Application Integration

Service	Use Case
AppSync	GraphQL API service.
AWS Backup	Centralized backup across AWS apps.
Resource Access Manager (RAM)	Share resources across accounts.
Service Catalog	Governed service provisioning.

 13. Management & Governance

Service	Use Case
CloudWatch	Monitoring, logs, metrics.
CloudTrail	API auditing & compliance.
AWS Config	Configuration compliance & drift tracking.
Trusted Advisor	Cost, security, performance recommendations.
Control Tower	Multi-account governance (landing zones).
Organizations	Multi-account management with SCPs.
Cost Explorer	Visualize cost and usage.
Budgets	Set budgets & alerts.

 14. Migration & Transfer

Service	Use Case
DMS	Database migration.
SMS	Server migration (VMware/Hyper-V).
Snowball / Snowmobile	Large-scale data transfer to AWS.
DataSync	Automated data movement between storage systems.
Application Migration Service (MGN)	Lift-and-shift migration.

 15. Quantum & Emerging

Service	Use Case
Braket	Quantum computing experimentation.