Pragmatic Programmer Issues

CloudFront Joined AWS Free Usage Tier

Amazon CloudFront is Content Delivery Network (CDN) and more as it is integrated and optimized to work with other AWS services. By using edge locations of Amazon’s DCs we can cache our content and deliver it with low latency. It doesn’t meter if the content is static (S3 object) or dynamic (EC2 service). We can deliver entire website, or cache part of it to improve performance (static content at edge location means faster download of images, js etc. ).  We should it consider in our mobile apps, when latency is challenging. You will find detailed information on product page.

So what’s the big deal with AWS Free Usage Tier?  AWS Free Usage Tier is how AWS promote services. We can use certain services for free. YES for FREE, of course with some restriction such as: storage size, total requests, hours, etc. For us it means we can build quite successful web page for free. On the other hand we can just run some tests to find out if particular solution works for us. It’s marketing for AWS, and opportunity for us.

Amazon CloudFront free tier allows for for 2,000,000 HTTP and HTTPS Requests each month for one year. For small business or testing purpose it’s enough.

If we can use it something for free it is good to mention it. In our profession we have to learn all the time, and access for free gives us opportunity to play a little bit before buying. For working professionals paying few bucks is not a problem, but for students it might be.

Currently AWS Free Usage Tier has:

  • Amazon EC2 – so we have some servers for free
  • Amazon S3 – so we have some static object for free
  • Amazon RDS – so we have database for free
  • Amazon CloudWatch – so we monitor for free
  • Amazon EBS – so we have storage for free
  • Amazon SES – so we can send email for free
  • Amazon SQS – so we have messaging for free
  • Amazon SNS – so we have notification for free
  • Amazon SWF – so we have workflows for free
  • and few more …

and of course Amazon CloudFront for free so we have CDN

In my opinion a lot of small businesses can start for free, and if somebody succeed than …… you know FB or Google will pay few millions  and will provide infrastructure 🙂

 

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