Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Think of it as renting a physical computer located in one of Amazon’s massive data centers, but instead of waiting for hardware to ship, you can boot it up in minutes via a web interface.
It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers by giving them complete control over their computing resources.
How EC2 Works
When you use EC2, you aren’t just getting a server; you are building a customized cloud storage for yourself. The process typically follows these steps:
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Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI): This is a template that contains software configuration (operating system, application server, and applications) required for your server.
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Select an Instance Type: You choose CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity based on your needs.
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Configure Networking and Security: You define the IP addresses, virtual private clouds (VPC), and security groups (firewalls) to control traffic.
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Launch and Scale: Once launched, you can scale the number of instances up or down manually or automatically depending on your traffic.
Features
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Elasticity: You can increase or decrease capacity within minutes. You can commission one, hundreds, or even thousands of server instances simultaneously.
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Complete Control: You have root access to every instance, and you can interact with them as you would any other machine. You can stop an instance while retaining your data and restart it later.
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Security: EC2 works in conjunction with Amazon VPC to provide security and robust networking functionality. You can set up “Security Groups” that act as a virtual firewall for your server.
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Flexible Pricing: You only pay for what you actually use.
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On-Demand: Pay by the second with no long-term commitment.
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Reserved Instances: Save up to 75% by committing to a 1- or 3-year term.
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Spot Instances: Bid on unused EC2 capacity for massive discounts (best for background tasks).
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Common Uses
| Uses | Description |
| Hosting Applications | Running web applications, blogs, or CMS systems like WordPress. |
| Development & Test | Creating environments to build and test software without buying physical hardware. |
| Data Analysis | Running high-performance computing (HPC) tasks or big data processing. |
| Disaster Recovery | Serving as a backup environment for on-premises servers. |
Why Use EC2?
Before cloud computing, businesses had to guess how much hardware they would need and buy it upfront. If they bought too much, money was wasted. If they bought too little, their websites crashed.
EC2 solves this by providing Elasticity. If your app goes viral, you can add ten more servers in seconds. When the hype dies down, you can shut them off and stop paying for them.