What is Amazon EC2? A Simple Guide
Amazon EC2 Overview: Instances and Pricing Plans Simplified
Amazon EC2 provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud as Amazon EC2 instances. Imagine you are responsible for the architecture of your company's resources and need to support new websites. With traditional on-premises resources, you have to do the following:
Spend money upfront to purchase hardware.
Wait for the servers to be delivered to you.
Install the servers in your physical data center.
Make all the necessary configurations.
In contrast, you can launch apps on a virtual server in the AWS Cloud by using an Amazon EC2 instance.
An Amazon EC2 instance can be set up and launched in a matter of minutes.
After completing a task, you can cease utilizing it.
When an instance is operating, you only pay for the compute time you use; when it is stopped or terminated, you do not pay.
Paying solely for the server capacity that you require or desire can help you save money.
How Amazon EC2 works
First, you launch an instance. Start by picking a template with basic settings for your instance. These settings include the operating system, application server, or applications. You also choose the instance type, which is the specific hardware setup of your instance.
As you get ready to launch an instance, you set up security settings to control the network traffic that can go in and out of your instance.
Next, connect to the instance. There are several ways to do this. Your programs and applications have different methods to connect directly to the instance and exchange data. Users can also connect by logging in and accessing the computer desktop.
Once you're connected to the instance, you can start using it. You can run commands to install software, add storage, copy and organize files, and more.
Amazon EC2 Instance Types
Amazon EC2 instance types are optimized for different tasks. When selecting an instance type, consider the specific needs of your workloads and applications. This might include requirements for compute, memory, or storage capabilities.
General purpose instances
It provides a nice balance of computing, memory, and networking resources. You can use them for a wide range of tasks, such as:
Application servers
Gaming servers
Backend servers for enterprise applications
Small and medium databases
A general purpose instance is an excellent option if your application requires around the same amount of memory, computing, and networking.
Compute-optimized instances
These are ideal for applications that benefit from high-performance CPUs and require a lot of processing power. You can use compute optimised instances for web, application, and gaming servers, just like you would with general purpose instances.
The main distinction is that specialised gaming servers, high-performance web servers, and compute-intensive application servers all benefit greatly from compute-optimized instances. They perform exceptionally well in batch processing workloads where numerous transactions must be handled simultaneously.
Memory-optimized instances
These instances are designed to deliver fast performance for workloads that process large datasets in memory. Think of memory as a temporary storage area that holds all the data and instructions a central processing unit (CPU) needs to complete actions. Before a computer program or application can run, it is loaded from storage into memory. This preloading process gives the CPU direct access to the program.
Imagine you have a workload that needs a lot of data to be preloaded before running an application. This could be a high-performance database or a workload involving real-time processing of a large amount of unstructured data. In these cases, consider using a memory-optimized instance. These instances let you run workloads with high memory needs and enjoy great performance.
Accelerated computing instances
These outperform CPU-based software in some tasks by utilising hardware accelerators, or coprocessors. Data pattern matching, image processing, and floating-point numeric computations are some of these activities.
A hardware accelerator is a part of a computer that expedites data processing. Workloads including graphics programmes, game streaming, and application streaming are ideal for accelerated computing instances.
Storage optimized instances
Workloads requiring quick, sequential read and write access to huge datasets stored locally are ideal for them. Consider activities like high-frequency online transaction processing (OLTP) systems, distributed file systems, and data warehousing applications.
In computing, a storage device's performance is measured in input/output operations per second or IOPs. It indicates the number of distinct input or output activities that a device can process in a single second. Storage-optimized instances are designed to give your applications tens of thousands of random, low-latency IOPS.
Amazon EC2 Pricing
On-Demand
As-needed For fluctuating, irregular workloads that cannot be interrupted, instances are perfect. Minimum contracts and upfront fees do not apply. Paying for only the compute time you need, the instances operate constantly until you stop them.
Reserved Instances
When you use On-Demand Instances in your account, Reserved Instances are a billing discount that is applied. Standard Reserved Instances, Convertible Reserved Instances, and Scheduled Reserved Instances are available for purchase with terms of one year or three years.
Spot Instances
Spot instances are best suited for workloads that can tolerate disruptions or have flexible start and finish times. Spot Instances save you up to 90% above On-Demand costs by utilising underutilised Amazon EC2 computing capacity.
Dedicated Hosts
Dedicated hosts are real servers that are exclusively for you to utilise, equipped with capacity for Amazon EC2 instances To help ensure licence compliance, you can continue to use your current per-socket, per-core, or per-VM software licences. Both On-Demand and Reserved Dedicated Hosts are available for purchase.
Amazon EC2 offers secure, scalable computing capacity in the cloud. It allows quick provisioning, flexible usage, and cost savings, as you pay only for active compute time. EC2 instances come in various types: general purpose, compute-optimized, memory-optimized, accelerated computing, and storage-optimized, each tailored for specific workloads. Pricing options include On-Demand, Reserved, Spot Instances, and Dedicated Hosts, providing flexibility and potential cost savings for different usage patterns.