Flexible Compute Capacity

AWS Introduction

1. What is EC2?

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers.

EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers to run their own computer applications. This flexibility provides the ability to quickly scale resources up or down as needed, ensuring efficient usage of resources.

2. Key Features

Scalability: Quickly scale your computing capacity up or down as per demand.
Variety of Instance Types: Choose from a wide array of instance types based on CPU, memory, storage, and networking requirements.
Integrated Networking: Use Amazon VPC for network isolation and security.
Flexible Pricing: Pay-as-you-go pricing model allows you to optimize costs.

3. Use Cases

Web Hosting: Host scalable and secure web applications.
Big Data Processing: Process large datasets with EC2’s high-performance compute capabilities.
Machine Learning: Use EC2 instances with GPU support for training machine learning models.

4. Pricing

EC2 offers several pricing options:

On-Demand Instances: Pay for compute capacity by the hour or second.
Reserved Instances: Reserve instances for a term of 1 or 3 years for a significant discount.
Spot Instances: Bid for unused capacity at potentially lower rates.

5. Best Practices

Important: Always choose the right instance type based on your workload for optimal performance and cost-efficiency.

Monitor your usage and optimize instance types accordingly.
Use Auto Scaling to handle traffic spikes and reduce costs during low traffic.
Implement security best practices, including using IAM roles and security groups.

6. FAQ

What is an EC2 instance?

An EC2 instance is a virtual server in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud for running applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure.

How do I choose the right EC2 instance type?

Consider your application requirements such as CPU, memory, storage, and network performance when selecting an instance type.

Can I change the instance type after launch?

Yes, you can stop your instance and change its type before restarting it.

Flowchart: EC2 Instance Selection Process


graph TD;
    A[Start] --> B{Is the workload stable?};
    B -- Yes --> C[Choose Reserved Instances];
    B -- No --> D{Is the workload predictable?};
    D -- Yes --> E[Choose On-Demand Instances];
    D -- No --> F[Choose Spot Instances];
    F --> G[Monitor and Adjust];
    C --> G;
    E --> G;
    G --> H[End];