<P> The AWS technology is implemented at server farms throughout the world, and maintained by the Amazon subsidiary . Fees are based on a combination of usage, the hardware / OS / software / networking features chosen by the subscriber, required availability, redundancy, security, and service options . Subscribers can pay for a single virtual AWS computer, a dedicated physical computer, or clusters of either . As part of the subscription agreement, Amazon provides security for subscribers' system . AWS operates from many global geographical regions including 6 in North America . </P> <P> In 2017, AWS comprised more than 90 services spanning a wide range including computing, storage, networking, database, analytics, application services, deployment, management, mobile, developer tools, and tools for the Internet of Things . The most popular include Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). Most services are not exposed directly to end users, but instead offer functionality through APIs for developers to use in their applications . Amazon Web Services' offerings are accessed over HTTP, using the REST architectural style and SOAP protocol . </P> <P> Amazon markets AWS to subscribers as a way of obtaining large - scale computing capacity more quickly and cheaply than building an actual physical server farm . All services are billed based on usage, but each service measures usage in varying ways . As of 2017, AWS owns a dominant 34% of all cloud (IaaS, PaaS) while the next three competitors Microsoft, Google, and IBM have 11%, 8%, 6% respectively according to Synergy Group . </P> <P> The AWS platform was launched in July 2002, in the beginning, the platform consisted of only a few disparate tools and services . Then in late 2003, the AWS concept was publicly reformulated when Chris Pinkham and Benjamin Black presented a paper describing a vision for Amazon's retail computing infrastructure that was completely standardized, completely automated, and would rely extensively on web services for services such as storage and would draw on internal work already underway . Near the end of their paper, they mentioned the possibility of selling access to virtual servers as a service, proposing the company could generate revenue from the new infrastructure investment . In November 2004, the first AWS service launched for public usage: Simple Queue Service (SQS). Thereafter Pinkham and lead developer Christopher Brown developed the Amazon EC2 service, with a team in Cape Town, South Africa . </P>

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