Anyone who has ever logged onto the AWS console will have noticed that there's a lot of services listed and if you're like me, you'll probably be wondering WTF they do. Well here's a brief glossary.

(Some of these services have a link you can follow for more details)

• REGION - a geographical area
• AVAILABILITY ZONE - equivalent to a datacentre. Each region has 2 or more availabilty zones
• EDGE LOCATION - a CDN end point for CloudFront (like an access point)

• VPC - Virtual Private Network, like a virtual datacentre. You can have many VPCs and they can be in a different region
• DIRECT CONNECT - A direct connection into AWS, i.e. not using the internet (like dark fibre)
• ROUTE53 - Amazon DNS service more

• EC2 - a virtual server more
• EC2 CONTAINER SERVICE - EC2 with docker management
• ELASTIC BEANSTALK - for deploying web services, developers can load up code and Amazon will work out the services to provide
• LAMBDA - can run code without starting up ECF2 services more

• S3 - a object based file store, more
• EBS - block storage typically used with EC2 instances, more
• CLOUDFRONT - Content Delivery Service (CDN) used for edge locations providing caching, more
• GLACIER - long term archving and backups, more
• EFS - Elastic File System, like NAS in the cloud, can present S3 into several EC2 instances for example, more
• SNOWBALL - an import/export service, Amazon provide a storage device to copy data into on premises which you can send to Amazon for import (or visa versa for export), more
• STORAGE GATEWAYS - an on premise storage gateway that can replicate data into the AWS cloud, more

• RDS - Rational Database Service, relational databases like Oracle, MySQL, etc more
• DYNAMODB - Amazon noSQL database
• ELASTICACHE - caching database services in the cloud
• REDSHIFT - Datawarehouse service
• DMS - Database Migration Service, can be used for migrating/conversion into the cloud

• EMR - Elastic Map Reduce, used for processing “big data”
• DATA PIPELINE - moving data from one service to another
• ELASTIC SEARCH - a search and analytics engine
• KNESIS - data streaming, for large scale streaming
• MACHINE LEARNING - a machine learning service, e.g. it's used by amazon.com to provide personal recommendations
• QUICK SIGHT - a business intelligence service

• IAM - Users, groups and roles more
• DIRECTORY SERVICES - AWS LDAP services
• INSPECTOR - installs an agent onto EC2 instances which will then check security settings
• WAF - Web Application Firewall
• CLOUD HSM - Hardware security module device integration
• KMS - Key Management Services

• CLOUDWATCH - monitoring
• CLOUD FORMATION - deployment tool
• CLOUD TRAIL - audit access to check what is happening on AWS
• OPSWORK - Configuration management services (used Chef)
• CONFIG - AWS resource inventory, configuration history and changes. Includes config rules so you can check configurations.
• SERVICE CATALOG - a catalog of of IT services
• TRUSTED ADVISOR - automated scan, checks how you can save money and increase security

• API GATEWAY - API development
• APPSTREAM - stream Windows applications from the cloud, a bit like Xenapp
• CLOUD SEARCH - managed service searcg solution for web services including geo location
• ELASTIC TRANSCODER - media transcoding service
• SES - Simple Email Service, an email service!
• SWF - Simple Workflow Service, application workflows

• CODECOMMIT - source control (AWS version of github)
• CODEDEPLOY - automating code deployment to AWS instances
• CODEPIPELINE - continous delivery service

• MOBILE HUB - building and testing mobile apps
• COGNITO - save mobile userdata in the cloud, like gane status, etc
• DEVICE FARM - testing apps against phones
• MOBILE ANALYTICS - measure app usage
• SNS - Simple Notification Service, send notifications from the cloud

• WORKSPACES - AWS version of VDI
• WORKDOCS - dropbox type of service
• WORKMAIL - AWS exchange equivalent

• a single service for IoT type stuff!?

P.S. I know this list will go out of data pretty quickly but you never know, I may update it from time to time….