Is Amazon Web Services (AWS) scalable cloud computing option?

I think this is a good question and there are several factors to consider. So far many of the cloud computing offerings show great promise in where this concept can go but they are all attempting different means. For example Google allows access to their infrastructure, but has a heavy reliance on Python as the language of choice. Also others such as Amazon allow much greater flexibility. Then there are companies such as the many mentioned in these threads which allow for even a greater diversity of options in terms of machine scalability, service scalability (i.e. data, web, etc.), dynamic resource management, and several others. Another cloud computing entity to keep in mind is Elastra who also supports more familiar data service scaling via MySQL.

Overall the differences in all of these approaches are based on making what works more accessible to others and more manageable. Again both Amazon and Google base their offerings on infrastructure that their business models are running on, and as a result offer quite a great platform of scale and availability. The tradeoff is that one has to be much more willing to accept the leaps that they have made in terms of answering the scaling challenge which may not be that easy to accept. For example SimpleDB and by that token BigTable are very great concepts and implementations, but they are not and should never be considered "traditional" such as a relational database model. Other players such are either extenders of such services or offering new services that may be more in line with what people are used to.

In the end which choice you determine to go with should be based on your needs, your comfort level with the chosen vendor's options, and your own thresholds for implementation. Any of these vendors are good for their own reasons, but whether those reasons are valid for what you need is entirely the crucial point that you will have to make.