AWS Cloud Computing Whitepapers
The whitepapers section features a comprehensive list of technical AWS whitepapers, covering topics such as architecture, security and economics. These whitepapers have been authored by the AWS Team, independent analysts or the AWS Community (Customers or Partners). This page will be regularly updated with new and updated whitepapers and reports. Check back regularly or subscribe to the RSS feed for new content.
Overview of AWS Whitepaper
Learn about all the different services that AWS provides today in this whitepaper
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The following is a list of whitepapers authored by AWS:
| Title | Description | Date |
|---|---|---|
| MongoDB on AWS | This whitepaper provides an overview of general best practices that apply to all major NoSQL systems and highlights one of popular NoSQL systems - MongoDB - and discusses how to best run it on the AWS cloud. It further examines different MongoDB configurations so you can optimize it for performance, durability, and security. Download Whitepaper | March 2013 |
| Overview of Amazon Web Services | This whitepaper is targeted at CXO/Technical decision makers and provides overview of AWS and discusses factors that distinguish AWS: Elastic + Scalable, Flexible, Secure and Experienced. It’s perfect for those who want to understand the AWS perspective on Cloud Computing. Download Whitepaper | March 2013 |
| Implementing Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) and SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups in the AWS Cloud | Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server 2012 provide built-in capabilities to run highly-available solutions for enterprise-class applications. This guide shows how to consistently and reliably deploy SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Availability Groups on a Windows Server failover cluster in the AWS cloud. Download Whitepaper | March 2013 |
| Overview of Security Processes | This document is intended to answer questions such as “How does AWS help me ensure my data are secure?” Specifically, AWS physical and operational security processes are described for network and infrastructure under AWS’ management, as well as service-specific security implementations. Download Whitepaper | March 2013 |
| AWS Risk and Compliance | This document intends to provide information to assist AWS customers with integrating AWS into their existing control framework supporting their IT environment. This document includes a basic approach to evaluating AWS controls and provides information to assist customers with integrating control environments. This document also addresses AWS-specific information around general cloud computing compliance issues. Download Whitepaper | January 2013 |
| Financial Services Grid Computing on AWS Cloud | This whitepaper is intended for architects and developers in the financial services sector who are looking to expand grid computation onto AWS. It outlines the best practices for managing large grids on the AWS cloud platform and offers a reference architecture to guide organizations in the delivery of these complex systems. Download Whitepaper | January 2013 |
| Migrating AWS Resources to a New Region | Customers may wish to migrate AWS Resources from one region to another for a variety of reasons. In particular, if a new region is available closer to their user base, they may wish to locate various services geographically closer to those users. This technical whitepaper is intended for experienced customers of AWS who would like to migrate existing resources to a new AWS region. The whitepaper provides technical guidance and best practices on migrating each AWS Resource such as AMI, keypairs etc. to another region. Download Whitepaper | January 2013 |
| Backup and Recovery Approaches Using AWS | This paper provides high-level concepts of how you can simplify your current backup and recovery environment in the enterprise. It provides details of how you can leverage the on-demand nature of the cloud and automate your backup and recovery processes so they are not only less complex and lightweight but also easy to manage and maintain. Download Whitepaper | December 2012 |
| Development and Test on AWS | This whitepaper describes how AWS adds value in the various phases of the software development cycle, with specific focus on development and test. The intended audiences for this paper are project managers, developers, testers, systems architects, or anyone involved in software production activities. Download Whitepaper | November 2012 |
| Amazon VPC Network Connectivity Options | Amazon VPC provides customers with several options for interconnecting their AWS virtual networks with other remote networks. This whitepaper describes several such common network connectivity options available to our customers. This includes connectivity options for integrating remote customer networks with Amazon VPC as well as interconnecting multiple Amazon VPCs into a contiguous virtual network. Download Whitepaper | October 2012 |
| Web Application Hosting: Best Practices | This whitepaper discusses Web application hosting solution in detail, including how each of the services can be used to create a highly available, scalable Web application. Download Whitepaper | September 2012 |
| The TCO of Web Applications in the Cloud | Do you know the true cost of running your web applications on your existing infrastructure? This whitepaper will help you understand the different cost factors involved when you deploy and manage a scalable web application in an on-premises environment and compare the total cost to a variety of different AWS purchasing options. Our analysis shows that AWS offers significant cost savings, up to 80%, compared to the equivalent on-premises deployments. Download Whitepaper | August 2012 |
| Creating HIPAA-Compliant Medical Data Applications With AWS | This paper briefly outlines how companies can use Amazon Web Services to power HIPAA-compliant information processing systems. Download Whitepaper | August 2012 |
| Secure Microsoft Applications on AWS | This paper provides guidance on how to secure your Microsoft applications on AWS. It outlines the principles for protecting the runtime environment of your Microsoft Windows applications with a focus on risk assessment, reducing attack surface, adhering to the principle of least privilege, and protecting your data. Download Whitepaper | August 2012 |
| Best Practices for Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) | This whitepaper will help you understand many of the best practices involved in creating and sending high quality email from a strategy and management perspective. It identifies characteristics of high value and high quality email, it talks about the parties involved in the email sending process, and it discusses best practices for optimizing and increasing email quality. Download Whitepaper | July 2012 |
| How AWS Pricing Works | This whitepaper will help you understand how to effectively estimate the costs of running your specific project on AWS. It provides several examples that leverage the AWS Simple Monthly Calculator. For each example, this paper discusses its architecture, example usage of each service, cost breakdown for each service, and the total estimated monthly charge. Download Whitepaper | July 2012 |
| Microsoft SharePoint Server on AWS Reference Architecture White Paper | This white paper discusses general concepts regarding how to run SharePoint on AWS and provides detailed technical guidance on how to configure, deploy, and run a SharePoint Server farm on AWS. It illustrates common reference architecture for SharePoint Server deployment scenarios and discusses their network, security, and deployment configurations so you can run SharePoint Server workloads in the cloud with confidence. Download Whitepaper | April 2012 |
| TCO of a NoSQL Database Service | This whitepaper will help you understand the different cost factors involved in deploying and managing a scalable NoSQL database solution. You will learn about the TCO savings of using a NoSQL (non-relational) database cloud service such as Amazon DynamoDB over equivalent NoSQL database software that is deployed on-premises or hosted in the cloud. Download Whitepaper | March 2012 |
| Operational Checklists for AWS | This paper is targeted at developers and architects who are looking for operational and architectural guidance from AWS to help assess their application’s operational readiness. It provides two checklists - Basic and Enterprise - so that you can evaluate your applications against a list of essential and recommended best practices and deploy them with confidence. Download Whitepaper | February 2012 |
| Using AWS for Disaster Recovery | In the event of a disaster, you can quickly launch resources in Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ensure business continuity. The paper highlights relevant AWS features and services that you can leverage for your DR processes and shows example scenarios on how to recover from disaster. It further provides recommendations on how you can improve your DR plan and leverage the full potential of AWS for your Disaster Recovery processes. Download Whitepaper | January 2012 |
| RDBMS in the Cloud: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 | You can run Microsoft SQL Server on the AWS Cloud. This whitepaper reveals how to best run Microsoft SQL Server 2008 on EC2 and discusses implementation choices to optimize for performance, durability, and security. It clearly enumerates how to take advantage of native Microsoft SQL Server features that provide scalability, high-availability, and fault-tolerance in the AWS Cloud environment. Download Whitepaper | September 2011 |
| Storage Options in the AWS Cloud |
This whitepaper helps you understand the primary data storage options available with the AWS cloud computing platform. We provide an overview of each storage option, describe ideal usage scenarios, and examine other important cloud-specific characteristics such as elasticity and scalability. Download Whitepaper
The companion paper presents several storage use cases that show how to use multiple AWS cloud storage options together. Download Use Cases Paper |
December 2010 |
| Migrating your Existing Applications to the AWS Cloud (with 3 example scenarios) |
This set of whitepapers are targeted at architects and technical decision makers of enterprises looking to build a cloud migration strategy. The main whitepaper discusses a phase-driven step-by-step strategy for migrating applications to the cloud and three scenarios illustrate the step-by-step strategy for common use cases. Download Main Whitepaper
|
October 2010 |
| Extend Your IT Infrastructure with Amazon VPC | This whitepaper discusses scenarios for Amazon VPC. Download Whitepaper | August 2010 |
| Designing Fault-Tolerant Applications in the AWS Cloud | This whitepaper is ideal for those who would like to understand how to build fault-tolerant application on AWS. Download Whitepaper | June 2010 |
| Architecting for the AWS Cloud: Best Practices | This whitepaper paper provides prescriptive guidance to cloud architects so that they can build highly scalable and elastic applications optimized to run in AWS cloud. It discusses cloud concepts and highlights various design patterns and best practices. Download Whitepaper | May 2010 |
| Using Windows ADFS for Single Sign-On to EC2 | This document provides step-by-step instructions for creating a test lab demonstrating identity federation between an on-premise Windows Server Active Directory domain and an ASP.NET web application hosted on EC2 service, using Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) technology. Download Whitepaper | March 2010 |
| AWS Security Best Practices | This is an excerpt from the Architecture paper. It is perfect for those who are concerned about Security and would like to know about our best practices. Download Whitepaper | December 2009 |
| The Economics of the AWS Cloud vs. Owned IT Infrastructure | This document presents a discussion of the costs of Amazon Web Services vs. traditional IT infrastructure alternatives, including comparative analysis of direct costs of ownership such as hardware costs and asset utilization, data redundancy and security, supply chain management, power and cooling efficiency, and personnel costs. Download Whitepaper | December 2009 |
| Cloud Architectures | This paper illustrates the style of building applications using services available in the Internet cloud. Download Whitepaper | July 2008 |
Partner Whitepapers
The following is a list of whitepapers authored by technology partners and consulting partners:
| Title | Description | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Mapping and GeoSpatial Analysis Using Esri's ArcGIS | This paper provides Esri ArcGIS users with the necessary information to get started with publishing and analyzing geographic information systems (GIS) imagery data (such as satellite imagery, or aerial imagery), as well as, creating tile cached map services in Amazon Web Services (AWS). The paper focuses on imagery, because that has been the most challenging data type to manage in the cloud, but the approaches discussed are general enough to apply to any type of data. Download Whitepaper | August 2012 |
| Providing SSO to Amazon EC2 Apps From an On-Premise Windows Domain | This is an overview paper written by a vendor and co-sponsored by AWS and Microsoft. Download Whitepaper | March 2010 |
| Oracle Database on Amazon EC2 | This guide provides information to help you get started with Oracle Database on Amazon EC2. Download Whitepaper | May 2009 |
Customer Whitepapers
The following is a list of whitepapers authored by AWS customers and community members:
| Title | Description | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon.com leverages the AWS Cloud for Oracle Database Backups | This paper describes how and why Amazon.com moved all its Oracle Database Backups from tapes to Amazon S3 using the Oracle Secure Backup Cloud Module. The paper provides the details of architecture, best practices, lessons learned and benefits that emerged due to moving to highly durable cloud storage. Download Whitepaper | September 2012 |
| Amazon’s Corporate IT Deploys SharePoint 2010 to the AWS Cloud | This paper describes how and why Amazon's corporate IT organization deployed its corporate intranet (an enterprise mission-critical corporate IT application that involves highly sensitive data) running Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to the AWS cloud. Download Whitepaper | September 2011 |
| Amazon's Corporate IT Migrates Business Process Management to the AWS Cloud | This paper describes how and why Amazon's corporate IT organization implemented its migration of Appian's Business Process Management Suite (an enterprise-class, mission-critical financial application) to the AWS cloud. Download Whitepaper | April 2011 |
Analyst Reports
The following is a list of whitepapers and reports authored by Analysts:
| Title | Description | Date |
|---|---|---|
| VMS: TCO Study for SAP on AWS | VMS AG leveraged its industry-leading intelligence to develop a detailed cost analysis of running small and large SAP ERP systems on AWS using the best practices of more than 2,850 SAP environments. The research discovered that running SAP applications on AWS provides infrastructure savings of up to 71% compared to running it on-premises. Download Whitepaper | February 2013 |
| Forrester Report: Enterprise Cloud Databases, Q4 2012 | In this Forrester Wave evaluation of enterprise cloud database offerings, Forrester Research finds that Amazon RDS and Amazon DynamoDB are among the leaders due to their breadth of cloud database capabilities and strong product strategy and vision. Read the report online | November 2012 |
| Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (Oct 2012) | Gartner Research positions Amazon Web Services in the Leaders Quadrant of the new Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (October 2012). Cloud IaaS, in the context of this Magic Quadrant, is defined as "computing resources, along with associated storage and network resources, offered to the customer via self-service in a highly-automated way, on-demand." Read the report online | October 2012 |
| Frost & Sullivan: Comparing CDN Performance: Amazon CloudFront’s Last Mile Testing Results | This whitepaper, sponsored by AWS, highlights two customers (Twitpic and PBS) that use Amazon CloudFront to deliver their content. The paper provides comparative performance data that shows that Amazon CloudFront is fastest among top CDNs in several latency tests and beats the average latency of other top CDNs in all tests. The paper also presents results of tests run on the Amazon.com site (which runs performance testing on several top CDNs) that shows Amazon CloudFront performance is on average 7 percent faster than the next closest CDN and 51 percent faster than the third CDN tested illustrating why the vast majority of traffic on the Amazon.com site is currently served by Amazon CloudFront. Download Whitepaper | August 2012 |
| IDC: The Business Value of AWS Accelerates Over Time | In early 2012, AWS commissioned IDC to interview 11 organizations that deployed applications on AWS. IDC set out to understand the long-term economic implications of moving workloads onto Amazon cloud infrastructure services, the impact of moving applications on developer productivity and business agility, and the new opportunities that businesses could address by moving resources onto AWS. IDC discovered that the five-year total cost of ownership (TCO) of developing, deploying, and managing critical applications in AWS delivered a 70% savings when compared with deploying the same resources on-premise or in hosted environments. The findings also showed a 626% ROI over five years. Download Whitepaper | July 2012 |
| Forrester Report: Enterprise Hadoop Solutions, Q1 2012 | In this Forrester Wave evaluation of enterprise Hadoop solution providers, Forrester Research finds that in the Leaders category, Amazon Web Services led the pack due to its proven, feature-rich Amazon Elastic MapReduce subscription service. Download Whitepaper | February 2012 |
| ESG: Enabling Cost-Efficient Disaster Recovery Leveraging Cloud Infrastructure | This paper authored by Enterprise Strategy Group outlines the problems organizations face when implementing disaster recovery, describes how the cloud changes the game, and provides insight into a suite of components from Amazon Web Services (AWS) that make DR in the cloud simple and cost-efficient. Download Whitepaper | January 2012 |
| Forrester Report: Market Overview - Public IaaS Clouds, Q4 2011 | In this report, Forrester writes about AWS : "the largest number of (and largest in scale) enterprise implementations; commercial applications supporting licensed deployment to the platform; management tool vendors support; and SaaS and other cloud and web services running on the platform. It has strong geographic reach and the broadest set of capabilities and surrounding services. And, its ecosystem is by far its greatest strength as it has self-sustaining momentum for further growth." Read the Full Report | November 2011 |
| 451 Research: Cloud DR coming of age at Amazon (and everywhere else) | In this report, 451 Research writes that disaster recovery (DR) in the cloud is rapidly gaining mainstream legitimacy and has even seen some adoption by enterprises, as overall mistrust of cloud infrastructure ebbs. Advances in networking sophistication by services like AWS and increasing virtualization within the enterprise contribute. Download Whitepaper | November 2011 |
| Forrester Report: File Storage Costs Less In The Cloud | This document will break down the cost differences by modeling a common workload — file storage — built and deployed traditionally versus consumed through the public cloud. Forrester’s models reveal a significant cost difference, with the cloud-based model coming in 74% less expensive than Infrastructure & Operations running it in-house. Download Whitepaper | August 2011 |
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