Computing Reviews

Website hosting and migration with Amazon Web Services :a practical guide to moving your website to AWS
Nadon J., Apress,New York, NY,2017. 257 pp.Type:Book
Date Reviewed: 04/13/18

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the key players in providing modern cloud infrastructure to businesses of all sizes. This book is a good introductory resource for a person who wants to dive into the AWS world. It is a practical and easy-to-follow book, full of screen shots that make it easy for a beginner to comprehend the flow. The book covers three common cases and discusses how, step by step, one can use AWS to achieve the desired goal in each case.

The book is divided into three parts, each discussing a scenario. The first part is dedicated to the case when one would like to host a static website in AWS. It introduces the reader to the AWS simple storage solution (S3) and shows how it can be accessed via the web interface as well as via AWS command line interface (CLI). The book also explains the basics of the domain name system (DNS) and the usage of Amazon’s Route53 to set up domain names.

If you already have a content management system (CMS)-based website, the second part of the book is more relevant for you. This part explains the typical structure of a CMS website and illustrates the usage of the AWS relational database service to manage a CMS-based site. An introduction to infrastructure as code (IaC) and AWS CloudFormation concepts is a plus.

The third part of the book deals with a relatively complex case of hosting an e-commerce website in AWS; it is relevant for a small- or medium-sized business. The author explains how AWS services can be used to handle scalability issues such as load balancing. Furthermore, the coverage of monitoring services (CloudWatch) fundamentals and AWS security services (AWS certificate manager) will expand the reader’s knowledge.

AWS provides a large number of services to create and manage information technology (IT) cloud infrastructure. Introducing all of them at once would overwhelm a beginner. The author does a good job in introducing AWS services at the right moment, when the reader actually needs the information. For instance, in the scenario of hosting a static website, the author introduces identity and access management (IAM), S3, and Route53 one by one, driven by need. This simple strategy works in the reader’s favor.

The book maintains a practical perspective by avoiding the theory behind the concept, but providing the necessary technical details to understand the concept.

It is expected from a book of an introductory nature to provide a comprehensive set of references for further reading. Although there is a chapter dedicated to it, I believe it could have been much meatier.

In summary, this is a decent resource for a beginning and intermediate readers who are ready to dive into the AWS world.

More reviews about this item: Amazon, Goodreads

Reviewer:  Tushar Sharma Review #: CR145975 (1807-0369)

Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.   Copyright 2024 ComputingReviews.com™
Terms of Use
| Privacy Policy