7 AWS Features for Mobile App Development

Last Updated on 2024-10-11

A highly secure cloud computing service is always a must for mobile tech startups, founders, and developers, and Amazon Web Services is a clear favorite.

AWS is a robust cloud computing platform provided by Amazon that allows you to build and deploy native applications through the cloud. As business owners, we should have some idea of how this thing works so we could serve the best systems for our clients.

AWS offers a wide range of cloud benefits such as database storage, content delivery, computing power, and other functionalities that help clients improve their productivity and scale their business for growth.

It often includes a combination of these services: Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Amazon Web Services is currently the market leader in the cloud services industry around the world, with more than 100 AWS services in more than 19 categories. So, let’s dive into the 7 AWS services to amplify your next AWS mobile app development project.

AWS for Mobile Applications

The AWS services offer utility, on-demand services, and a pay-as-you-go pricing model. It is extremely beneficial for individuals and enterprises who might need an infrastructure service that scales according to ever-changing business requirements.

By familiarizing yourself with the different AWS features, you can optimize your company’s infrastructure to the cloud for reliability, compliance, and security. If you’re looking to incorporate AWS cloud application development services into your next mobile app development, our cloud experts at Full Scale can show you how.

7 AWS Services for Mobile Applications

1. Amazon DynamoDB

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully-managed NoSQL database cloud service that offers accelerated and calculated performance with maximum scalability. It allows you to store and retrieve volumes of data or traffic depending on demand. The database service is exceedingly fast, consistent, with single-digit millisecond latency.

This means that setting up, configuration, hardware provisioning, software patching, replication, and cluster scaling will be the least of your worries. It comes with encryption at rest, so it eliminates the complexity and the burden of securing sensitive data.

Since it supports automatic partitioning, any product that requires scaling volume, data, and growth can still operate seamlessly without any interference from the user.

Its scalability and reliability benefits make it a great choice for mobile, gaming, web, ads, IoT, and other types of apps. It also supports multiple types of documents and key-value store models. To get started with Dynamo DB, you can check out these helpful guides for more details:

• Amazon DynamoDB: How It Works
• Setting Up DynamoDB
• Accessing DynamoDB

2. AWS Device Farm

AWS Device Farm is an application testing service that allows you to test and interact with iOS, Android, and web apps on multiple devices simultaneously, or clone issues on a device in real-time. There are two distinct ways you can use this service:

• Remote Access – Real-time interaction with devices directly from a web browser
• Automated Testing – test apps in parallel against a huge collection of physical devices in the AWS Cloud.

To further understand the functionalities and advantages of AWS Device Farm, here are some links to helpful resources for you:

• Developer Guide
• Setting Up

3. Amazon Pinpoint

For business owners, developers, and online marketers who rely on targeted push notifications to reach and engage customers, Amazon Pinpoint is a great tool to do just that. This service makes it more convenient to run targeted campaigns and measure their performance, as well.

Some of the targeted campaigns used to reach and engage with users are promotional alerts, customer retention campaigns, and transactional messages like password reset and order confirmation messages.

Integrate Amazon Pinpoint into your web and mobile apps to monitor usage data and provide you with an insight into how users or customers engage with the app.

In addition, you can customize audience segments and pre-schedule targeted campaigns through SMS, email, and push notifications. Click on the link below for additional resources about Amazon Pinpoint:

• Amazon Pinpoint Features

4. AWS Lambda

With AWS Lambda, you can run code without managing or provisioning servers. So, you only pay for the actual computing time you use, and you’re not charged when your code is idle.

You can upload the code for any type of apps or backend services, and AWS Lambda will take care of the rest, including scaling the code for maximum availability. Users don’t need to manage servers.

You can set up the code to automatically trigger from other AWS services or use it from any mobile or web app. To understand how AWS Lambda can work for your business, check out this helpful resource:

• AWS Lambda Resources

5. Amazon Cognito

Amazon Cognito is an AWS service that lets you create a unique and secure sign-up, sign-in, app authentication, and access control on web and mobile apps for users. This service is compatible with sites that require sign-ins such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.

The Amazon Cognito User Pools is a feature that maintains a user directory that can accommodate hundreds of millions of users. As a secure identity provider, it supports identity and access management standards like OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0, and SAML 2.0.

It also supports authentication, security, and compliance requirements. Amazon Cognito is HIPAA eligible and complies with SOC, PCI DSS, ISO/EIC 27001, ISO/EIC 27017, ISO/EIC 27018, and ISO 9001. For additional reading about Amazon Cognito, click on the links below:

• Getting Started with Amazon Cognito
• Developer Resources

6. Amazon CloudFront

Amazon CloudFront is a global content delivery network (CDN) service from AWS. It delivers fast and highly secure data, applications, videos, and APIs around the world with low latency.

It integrates with your physical location on an AWS global infrastructure and other AWS services.

In addition, this service is compatible with other services such as Amazon S3, AWS Shield for DDoS mitigation, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon EC2, AWS Elemental Media Services, Amazon Route 53, and Lambda@Edge. To learn how to get started with CloudFront, check out these resources:

• Getting Started with CloudFront
• How to Deliver Content Faster

7. Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service or Amazon S3 is a cloud object storage service that stores and enables accessing of data from any device.

It can store and secure any amount of data from mobile apps, websites, backups, IoT devices, corporate applications, and others with robust security and 99.99% reliability. S3 has different storage classes designed for specific purposes:

• Amazon Glacier – long-term, durable, secure data archiving and backup.
• S3 Standard – for general-purpose object storage of frequently accessed data.
• S3 Standard-Infrequent Access – for data that are infrequently accessed but still needs quick access. It is ideal for long-term storage, backup especially for disaster recovery
• S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access – similar to S3 Standard-Infrequent Access. however, unlike other storage classes that store data in three Availability Zones (AZ), this one store’s data in a single AZ, costs 20% less than S3 Standard-IA. Ideal for customers who want a low-cost option for infrequently accessed data and don’t require the strength of S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA.

Here are some additional resources on Amazon S3:

• Amazon S3 Features
• Amazon S3 Storage Classes