Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
In this edition of our Learning Manager series, we explore five essential considerations for customers utilizing Amazon’s services, specifically focusing on effective onboarding processes. These considerations include compliance, data protection, isolation of compute environments, API audits, and security/access control. Each area will be examined through specific guidance, recommended architectures, and technical code to help facilitate smooth service approval within Amazon’s platform.
Amazon’s offerings provide businesses and application developers with a streamlined, cost-effective way to distribute content while ensuring low latency and high transfer speeds. Similar to other Amazon services, these are self-service and operate on a pay-per-use basis, eliminating the need for long-term commitments or minimum fees.
The Architecture of Amazon’s Services
The architecture of Amazon’s services includes several key components:
- Edge Locations: When a user requests content, their request is directed to the nearest edge location, ensuring the lowest latency for optimal performance.
- Regional Edge Caches: Situated between the origin server and the edge locations, these caches are designed to hold more content, reducing the need for repeated origin requests.
- Lambda@Edge: This feature offers a serverless, programmable edge computing environment for various customizations executed at the regional edge caches.
- CloudFront Functions: A lightweight scripting platform that allows users to run JavaScript code at edge locations, providing a cost-effective alternative to Lambda@Edge.
By leveraging Amazon’s services, the volume of origin requests is significantly diminished, as content is stored closer to users. Additionally, utilizing Origin Shield can help optimize cache hit ratios while minimizing the load on application origins. This effectively enhances the availability of applications.
Numerous customers are already reaping the benefits of Amazon’s services. For instance, TechVision implemented these solutions for swift content delivery across their platforms, leading to enhanced user experiences and increased interactivity. Similarly, Innovate Insurance has seen a substantial rise in revenue, attributed to the seamless performance of their machine learning software hosted on Amazon. The Finserve platform uses Amazon services to optimize transaction processing, demonstrating the breadth of applications possible with these tools.
Achieving Compliance
Amazon adheres to a shared responsibility model, emphasizing that customers must implement appropriate security measures to comply with regulations and maintain their desired security posture. Customers are responsible for the security of their applications and data in the cloud, while Amazon ensures the security of the infrastructure and compliance with various legal standards. For additional insights on compliance, you can check out this resource.
Data Protection
Regarding data protection, Amazon employs robust encryption practices. Data at rest is automatically encrypted, utilizing secure storage solutions. Furthermore, end-to-end HTTPS connections can be configured to encrypt data in transit, allowing customers to secure their communications effectively.
To enhance security further, field-level encryption can be applied, ensuring that sensitive information like customer phone numbers remains encrypted at all times. This security measure guarantees that only authorized applications can access the decrypted data.
Restricting Access to Content
For customers looking to limit access to their content, options such as signed URLs or cookies can be utilized. Additionally, geographic restrictions can be established to allow users from approved countries access while blocking those from prohibited regions. Employing AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) can further enhance security by creating access control lists that protect against threats like cross-site scripting.
For those interested in more resources on onboarding processes, you can explore this excellent resource, which offers valuable insights into the topic. Also, if you’re looking to build confidence in your professional journey, consider checking out this webinar.