1. What technology services does Amazon provide? What are the business advantages to Amazon and to subscribers of these services? What are the disadvantages to each? What kinds of businesses are likely to benefit from these services?
2. How do the concepts of Capacity Planning, scalability and TCO apply to this case? Apply these concepts both to Amazon and to subscribers of its services.
3. Search the internet for companies that supply utility computing. Select two or three such companies and compare them to Amazon. What services do these companies provide? What promises they make about availability? Who is their target client? If you were launching a web start up business, would you choose one of these companies over Amazon for web services? Why or Why not? Would your answer change if you were working for a larger company and had to make recommendation to the CTO?
4. Think of an Idea for Web based start up business. Explain how this business could utilize Amazon’s S3 and EC2 services.