4.2.1. AWS Free Tier
š” First Principle: The AWS Free Tier provides a cost-effective way for new users to explore and experiment with AWS services within certain limits, enabling hands-on learning and development without incurring charges.
The AWS Free Tier allows you to explore and try out many AWS services free of charge, up to certain usage limits. It's an excellent way for new users to learn about AWS and for developers to build and test applications without incurring costs.
Key Aspects of the AWS Free Tier:
- Three Types of Offers:
- Always Free: Services that are always free up to certain usage limits, regardless of when you create your AWS account. E.g., 1 million AWS Lambda requests per month, 25 GB of Amazon DynamoDB storage.
- 12 Months Free: Services that are free for 12 months following your AWS sign-up date, up to certain usage limits. E.g., 750 hours per month of EC2 t2.micro or t3.micro instances, 5 GB of Amazon S3 Standard storage.
- Trials: Short-term free trials for certain services or features. E.g., for Amazon Redshift or AWS Glue.
- Usage Limits: Each service has specific usage limits within the Free Tier (e.g., hours for EC2, GB for S3).
- Monitoring Usage: Important to monitor your usage to avoid exceeding Free Tier limits, which would then incur standard charges. The AWS Management Console provides tools to track your Free Tier usage.
Scenario: A student is learning about AWS and wants to experiment with EC2 instances and S3 storage without incurring any costs.
Reflection Question: How does the AWS Free Tier, by providing various types of free usage limits (e.g., "always free," "12 months free"), fundamentally offer a cost-effective way for new users to explore and experiment with AWS services without incurring charges?