Maximizing the Value of AWS: Lesser-Known Services You Need to Know

While many people are familiar with the basic services that AWS offers, such as EC2 and S3, there are a number of lesser-known services that can be just as useful for businesses looking to maximize the value they get from AWS. In this blog post, we will explore some of the lesser-known, but incredibly useful, additional services that AWS provides.

AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a cloud-based security service that helps protect web applications from common web exploits and attacks. With AWS WAF, you can create rules to block specific traffic patterns, such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks, from reaching your web application. One of the key benefits of AWS WAF is its flexibility. You can create custom rules based on your specific application's needs and easily update them as your application evolves. Additionally, AWS WAF integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon CloudFront and AWS Lambda, allowing you to create more sophisticated security configurations.

AWS WAF also provides a range of pre-configured rules and rule groups that help protect against common threats. These include the list of the most critical web application security risks.

Another advantage of AWS WAF is its scalability. As your web application grows, AWS WAF can handle increasing levels of traffic and automatically scale to meet demand.

AWS also offers a comprehensive set of monitoring tools to help you track and analyze the performance of your cloud-based applications and infrastructure. These tools provide insights into your application's health, resource utilization, and performance metrics, helping you detect and resolve issues quickly.

AWS monitoring capabilities include:

• CloudWatch: This is the primary monitoring service offered by AWS. It provides metrics and logs for AWS resources such as EC2 instances, RDS databases, and Lambda functions. CloudWatch can also be used to set alarms, create custom metrics, and generate automated responses to events.
• CloudTrail: This service provides a detailed audit trail of all activity within an AWS account, including API calls and management console activity. This information can be used to identify potential security issues and troubleshoot problems.
• AWS Config: This service provides a detailed inventory of all AWS resources within an account, as well as configuration history and compliance data. This enables users to assess and manage the overall security and compliance posture of their AWS environment.
• AWS X-Ray: This service provides a detailed view of how applications and services interact with each other, including performance metrics and error rates. This enables users to identify and troubleshoot issues with their applications. AWS Service Health Dashboard: This dashboard provides real-time information about the status of AWS services, including any service disruptions or outages.
• AWS Inspector: a security assessment service that helps to identify vulnerabilities and security issues in your AWS resources.
• Macie: a data security and privacy service that uses machine learning to automatically discover, classify, and protect sensitive data stored in AWS.
• GuardDuty: a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior in your AWS environment.

In conclusion, AWS offers a wide range of monitoring tools that enable users to track the performance of their applications and infrastructure. These tools provide real-time visibility into the health of AWS resources, enabling users to identify and troubleshoot issues quickly.