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TechMagic

Posted on • Originally published at techmagic.co

Overview of AWS Management Tools: What to Choose for Your Business

Getting lost in the Amazon web services management tools is relatively easy since this cloud environment provider did its best to supply businesses with highly customized and effective sets of solutions. Each of them can perfectly match most of the business needs and development goals. In this article, we will come up with an overview of AWS management tools to help you make a fully informed and value-driving choice.

What Are Cloud Management Tools?

Cloud management tools are the solutions that allow for configuring, running, controlling, managing, and optimizing your cloud operations. Amazon Web Services management tools are exactly an example of those.

You can solve each of the tasks using a particular AWS platform that will be perfectly tailored to the use case and goal. Depending on the types of Amazon management tools you choose for your business, you may expect the following benefits:

  • IT costs saving
  • Resources consumption control and flexibility
  • Accessibility
  • Staying updated
  • Scaling and flexibility
  • Backup and recovery
  • Seamless integration
  • Enhanced security

To find out which AWS administration solutions suit your business best, proceed with our AWS management tools tutorial. Below we have described and categorized Amazon web services management tools depending on the use-case, features, and business opportunities.

Cloud Resources Provisioning Tools

Cloud provisioning tools are dedicated solutions used for cloud resource allocation, procurement, and management. They are core AWS cloud management tools, and in fact, these are just the solutions that power the idea of using the cloud provided by the vendor instead of deploying your on-premise infrastructure since the first comes with greater scalability opportunities.

Example: AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation
As the name implies, AWS Cloud Formation is the platform that allows for collecting and modeling of external and internal cloud resources and managing them from one place by adjusting the infrastructure and the code itself. This solution comes with a pre-developed template that describes the dependencies and the ways to manage them more effectively.

AWS Cloud Formation Benefits:

  • automated patching
  • checks and updates
  • automated recommendations
  • other AWS service management tools integration
  • managing your cloud as a stack makes it one of the most effective AWS multi-cloud management tools

Operations Management Tools

While the first set of AWS management tools stands for the opportunity to wisely allocate and collect your cloud resources, operations management tools powered by Amazon are the solutions that allow for setting up your cloud workloads and adjusting them according to your business needs. With the help of these AWS management tools, you can protect your business from data loss, improve efficiency through tailoring your operations to current tasks and goals, plus deliver more value to your customers at the speed and quality they expect.

Example: AWS Service Catalog

AWS Service Catalog
AWS Service Catalog is the solution that enables the AWS developers to create and manage IT catalogs, for example, the ones for virtual machines and environments, servers, and databases for multi-level architecture apps. With its help, you can manage your apps and metadata in a more centralized way by setting up the access and competencies to manage the software versions and IT services.

AWS Service Catalog Benefits:

  • Your own IT services catalog with flexible access settings for your employees and final customers
  • Centralized and transparent management of IT services thought their lifecycle
  • Seamless integration with AWS multi-cloud management tools, governing, and provisioning solutions

Monitoring and Logging Tools

These AWS management tools allow you to monitor your logs or log files (the files storing the information about the operations within a system), plus analyze and display them in a convenient dashboard. They collect and analyze logs from multiple sources, using Amazon EC and providing complete information on your AWS environments and apps. From a business value perspective, these tools can promise increased agility, better performance, enhanced security, and staying up-to-date.

Example: Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon CloudWatch
The main task of Amazon Cloud Watch is data gathering and analysis. It collects data on changes in your app’s performance and resources usage and classifies this data to showcase it in a single dashboard. According to AWS management tools reviews, this solution is intelligent, intuitive, and effective.

Amazon Cloud Watch Benefits:

  • Operational control and analysis
  • The opportunity to collect data from different resources
  • Convenience — you can view various metrics in a single platform
  • Real-time anomaly detection and control
  • Customization and cost-saving opportunities — for example, you can stop your instances at a certain point to cut costs

Managed Services and Configuration Tools

AWS managed services and configuration tools are one-stop solutions for those in need of additional tech expertise when migrating to the cloud and configuring AWS services in a way that will work well for their business. This is a set of ready-made services Amazon can provide you with, and it covers quite a wide range of necessities. AWS managed services come with a predictable price, but still may be scaled. They also include cybersecurity and compliance support, automatic backup, and disaster recovery offerings.

Example: AWS Systems Manager

AWS Systems Manager

An AWS System Manager is a tool that helps manage Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS instances from a single interface. It is also suitable for managing hybrid environments, automating routine tasks, and staying compliant.

AWS System Manager Benefits:

  • Simplified management of your resources and apps
  • Cutting time and costs for problems identification and solving
  • Seamless integrations, for example, with Amazon Cloud Watch

AWS Tools for Reporting and Cost Optimization

As the name implies, the main task of this set of tools is real-time and transparent reporting on your resources consumption, weak points identification, and cutting costs on computing power wasted spendings. This is a handy set of solutions for those using the Pay as You Go pricing model, since it, despite its flexibility, may turn out to be the most expensive one in case some resources are wasted.

Example: AWS Cost Explorer

AWS Cost Explorer

AWS Cost Explorer is an effective cost management tool since it provides you with instant data on your spendings in the form of a visual dashboard.

AWS Cost Explorer Benefits:

  • You can use it for free (but it will be paid in the cause of API)
  • You can view data for up to the last 12 month
  • There are spending trends overviews
  • You can also predict your spendings for a year

What AWS Management Tools Does TechMagic Use?

AWS management tools in TechMagic

TechMagic is a Certified AWS Consulting Partner, which means that AWS trusts us to help our clients implement and manage an AWS cloud deployment. We are well-versed with all the tools listed above, plus we consider the following solutions to be the most effective:

  • Amazon CloudWatch
  • AWS CloudFormation
  • AWS CloudTraill
  • AWS Config
  • AWS OpsWorks
  • AWS Systems Manager
  • AWS Service Catalog

Surely, each tool has its specific use case and can be especially effective when perfectly tailored to your business goals, needs, and growth vision. You are welcome to contact us for AWS and serverless consulting services, setting up your infrastructure, and competent help using AWS solutions in your business development process.

Conclusion

Each of the management tools in Amazon Web Services we have reviewed are essential for successful cloud configuration and running. Still, thoughtful business analysis can help you reveal the top goal you need to achieve right now to boost your business efficiency with Amazon AWS.

Get in touch with tech-savvy consultants to make the final choice. We at TechMagic will be glad to help you get started with Amazon services — you are welcome to contact us and discuss your project with us!

Top comments (1)

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Rima Sharma

This is a great article for anyone looking to learn more about AWS management tools and how to choose the best for their business. I recently worked with an AWS consulting team on a project and found it to be extremely helpful in understanding the different tools available and how to best use them.