FOPS Tech
Top 10 AWS Services Every Startup Should Know
From compute to identity — the AWS building blocks that get a startup to production quickly and safely.
AWS has hundreds of services. A startup needs about ten. Master these and you can run almost any workload.
1. EC2 — Compute
Virtual servers you control. Start small, use Auto Scaling groups, and move steady workloads onto Savings Plans.
2. S3 — Object storage
Durable, cheap storage for assets, backups, logs, and static sites. Turn on versioning and lifecycle rules from day one.
3. IAM — Identity & access
The security backbone. Use roles instead of long-lived keys, enforce least privilege, and require MFA on every human account.
4. RDS — Managed databases
PostgreSQL or MySQL without the operational burden — automated backups, patching, and multi-AZ failover.
5. VPC — Networking
Your private network. Public subnets for load balancers, private subnets for everything else.
6. CloudFront — CDN
Global edge caching for your site and API, with free TLS certificates via ACM.
7. Lambda — Serverless functions
Run code without managing servers — ideal for glue logic, scheduled jobs, and event processing.
8. ECS / EKS — Containers
Run Docker workloads. ECS Fargate for simplicity, EKS (Kubernetes) when you need portability and ecosystem.
9. CloudWatch — Monitoring
Metrics, logs, dashboards, and alarms. Instrument before you launch, not after the first incident.
10. Secrets Manager — Secrets
Store API keys, DB passwords, and tokens with automatic rotation — never in code or environment files.
FOPS Tech sets up these foundations as Infrastructure as Code, so your environment is reproducible, version-controlled, and secure from the first deploy.
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