Sometimes, it can feel like the ~$120 billion cloud industry emerged out of thin air, seemingly overnight. But Amazon Web Services (AWS), the pioneering (and leading) cloud computing platform provided by Amazon.com, emerged from separate internal initiatives at Amazon over 15 years ago to both aid developers and also improve the efficiency of the company’s own infrastructure. The origins of AWS as a developer tool can be traced all the way back to 2002, when an initial beta was released (named Amazon.com Web Service) that offered SOAP and XML interfaces for the Amazon product catalogue. This welcome mat for developers was the first step by Amazon to embracing the potential of developer-friendly tools, particularly in an infrastructure space, as an actual product. Not long after, in 2003, during an executive retreat at Jeff Bezos’ house, the Amazon leadership team was asked to identify the core strengths of the company. One thing … Continue reading A Brief History of AWS