# Frequently Asked Questions

## Before Getting Started

### What benefits would I gain from running my X-Road Security Server and Information System on AWS?

**Agility**. AWS lets you quickly spin up resources as you need them. This means you can very quickly develop, test 
and roll out new applications that have Security Server dependencies, and it means you can experiment and innovate 
more quickly and frequently. If an experiment fails, you can always de-provision Security Servers and Information
System resources without risk.

**Cost Savings**. By running your entire workload on AWS, you can trade capital expense (purchasing servers and 
licenses) for variable expense, and only pay for the IT resources that you consume. The variable expense is much lower
than what you could do for yourself because of the economies of scale.

**Elasticity**. You no longer need to over-provision for your business operations at the peak level of activity, but 
rather scale up and down instantly based on the needs of your business. This also reduces cost and improves your ability
to meet your customers' needs.

**Faster innovation**. You can focus your specialists on developing what differentiates your business, rather than the
undifferentiated heavy lifting of managing IT infrastructure and data centers.

### When should I not run my X-Road Security Server on AWS?

Are you planning on running the associated workload (Consumer or Producer Information System) **eventually on AWS**? 
Running only the Security Server on AWS is unlikely to bring significant benefits to your infrastructure, but 
could introduce additional daily operation and maintenance overheads due to running in a hybrid environment.

Do you have any **regulatory data governance requirements** for your workloads that could restrict how or where
your or your customers' data can be processed? If so, please [contact AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/) 
or an [X-Road Technology Partner](https://x-road.global/xroad-technology-partners-companies) to discuss the
specifics of your use case before deciding to build your X-Road workload on AWS.