Amazon launched Amazon Web Services, commonly called AWS, in 2006 as a platform for on-demand computing infrastructure and related services.
AWS began by offering foundational services such as Simple Storage Service, known as S3, and Elastic Compute Cloud, known as EC2. These services allowed organizations to rent storage and computing capacity instead of buying and maintaining all the required hardware themselves.
The cloud business became a major part of Amazon’s corporate structure and financial profile. AWS serves startups, governments, universities, and large enterprises around the world, and its services extend far beyond basic servers and storage.
A frequent mix-up is treating AWS as synonymous with Amazon’s retail website. They are separate businesses within Amazon. Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are competing cloud platforms, but neither was launched by Amazon.