Evolution and What’s Next for AWS

AWS lists over 100 services today. The speed at which AWS has released these services and the number of enhancements to each of these services overtime is remarkable. 

However, in my opinion, of all the service announcements and enhancements, three of them deserve special credit. These three played a pivotal role in popularizing Cloud and AWS, and helped catapult AWS to the top.

1)      Public launch of Amazon S3 in early 2006

2)      Public launch of Amazon EC2 in mid 2006 (Remember EC2-Classic)

3)      Amazon EC2- Classic to Amazon EC2-VPC in 2013

(Many people I have spoken to think of AWS and Cloud, as the future; the new shiny object. I get a surprised look almost every time I tell people Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2 were introduced back in 2006; so AWS is not new).

Compute and/or Storage are the backbone of software applications. Amazon S3 being scalable, durable and most primarily low cost, redefined storage. 

Spinning up a server when you want, not having to wait for the infrastructure team to provision, and having the server right away and not after a few months, was almost magic back then. In that sense, Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 were game changers when they were launched and came out as boon for programmers and companies.

• This is why I think Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2 deserve the 1^st and the 2^nd special credits.

For people who have not heard of Amazon EC2-Classic, Amazon EC2-Classic was the original version of Amazon EC2. I don’t remember if they used to call it Amazon EC2-Classic or just Amazon EC2 back then. These Amazon EC2 sat outside the VPC and ran on a network shared by all customers. They were not logically isolated to one AWS account, and so could reference Security Groups of other AWS accounts too. All this changed in 2013 when AWS introduced Amazon EC2-VPC. Amazon EC2-VPC could/can run only within a Amazon VPC, which is logically isolated to only one AWS account. If you did not have a Amazon VPC, then the Amazon EC2 is created in the default Amazon VPC. Along with AWS IAM, Firewalls in Amazon EC2, you could now leverage security features of the NACL, Security Groups (of the account which owns the Amazon EC2 only), Subnet (public and private), route tables etc. This enabled the data and the applications within EC2 to be made as secure as you wanted. Amazon EC2-VPC almost put an end to the question of data security within Amazon EC2, in my opinion. Cloud was as safe as on premise; if not safer.

• This is why I think the announcement of Amazon EC2 VPC in 2013 deserves the third special credit.

 

So what’s next for AWS?

AWS has built/ is building an excellent suite of hardware and system software capabilities. It has services ranging from data ingestion, data processing, data computation, databases, data storage, data distribution, data consumption, data security, data access management, data controls and more. It caters to most of the industry data security and access protocols.

I think the next logical step for AWS will be to get into building Industry specific Application software that sits on top of its System software and Hardware. To be more specific, AWS should build AI/ML driven Application software that works seamlessly with its ecosystem. They can provide Application software tailored and customized to specific Industries such as – Banking, Retirement Plans, Telecom, Manufacturing, Health Care and sciences etc. It can also be application software tailored and customized for small business such as grocery shops/chains, automobile service centers, hair Saloons, fast food joints etc.

For example – If you consider a Banking Application Software, the entire flow of deposits, money accumulation, money growth, withdrawals,  loan processing, customer letters and regulatory reports generation and dispatch, creation of financial statements including  ledgers, P&L accounts, balance sheets..., every activity that a bank software does should be available of the shelf. The bank should be able to customize and tailor the software with minimum effort. All this will be “Pay per Use” - sticking true to the principle of Cloud!

The Bank, in this example, would have a small software customization team and a small servicing team. The entire banking operations happens behind the scene with minimal to zero human intervention. The bank does not have to worry about software development, hardware hosting, data security, regulatory reporting… The AWS Banking software will take care of all that. The Bank will get a usage bill for the Computation and Storage; and a pay per use bill for the actual software usage.

Think about this for a minute. The possibilities are endless. As more banks get onto this model, it opens up new avenues in data sharing, risk management, auditing etc. The same bank might service a grocery store, which in turn might be using a AWS store software, can now have seamless exchange of transactions.

I do not think such a day is far. 

Possible path forward -  

1. Not so far in the distinct future, AWS and its services might redefine Banking, Retirement Planning or even a Hair Saloon or a neighborhood grocery store as we know it.
2. If I can hazard an extreme guess, I also think, the very nature of IT services might get reconfigured. Application software sitting on top of AWS might be available for anyone or any business of the shelf, with deep customization capabilities and pay per use.  

 

~Narendra V Joshi