An EC2 in AWS is an instance type that provides the compute power for your web applications. When you launch an EC2 instance, you get access to the horsepower of Amazon’s massive computing infrastructure.
Your EC2 instance can be used to run any application or service that runs on Amazon’s cloud, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes, and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances with Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)s.
When you create an EC2 instance, you get access to a number of features, including:
Compute capacity – You can launch an EC2 instance with a variety of compute capacity options, including m1.small, m1.
medium, and m1.large.
Storage capacity – You can launch an EC2 instance with a variety of storage capacity options, including s3.small, s3.
medium, and s3.
Network bandwidth – You can launch an EC2 instance with a variety of network bandwidth options, including 1 Gbps, 2 Gbps, and 4 Gbps.
Instance type – You can launch an EC2 instance with a variety of instance types, including t2.micro, t2.small, t2.
medium, and t2.
Security – You can launch an EC2 instance with a variety of security options, including public-facing and private-facing instances.
You can also use an EC2 instance to run applications that are not hosted on the Amazon cloud. For example, you can use an EC2 instance to run a Windows Server instance or a Linux server.
EC2 instances are virtual servers that can run applications. They are scalable and can be stopped and started as needed.
However, EC2 instances can be expensive and you can only pay for them by the hour. Therefore, it is important to understand your compute needs before using EC2.
When you launch an EC2 instance, you get access to the following features:
Access to Amazon’s massive computing infrastructure – You can use an EC2 instance to run any application or service that runs on Amazon’s cloud.
Instance type – You can use an EC2 instance with a variety of instance types, including t2.
Storage capacity – You can use an EC2 instance with a variety of storage capacity options, including s3.
Network bandwidth – You can use an EC2 instance with a variety of network bandwidth options, including 1 Gbps, 2 Gbps, and 4 Gbps.
Security – You can use an EC2 instance with a variety of security options, including public-facing and private-facing instances.
You also get the following features when you create an EC2 instance:
Access to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Management Console – You can use the Amazon Web Services Management Console to manage your EC2 instances.
Access to the Amazon EC2 API – You can use the Amazon EC2 API to manage your EC2 instances.
Access to the Amazon EC2 Launchpad – You can use the Amazon EC2 Launchpad to launch and manage your EC2 instances.
When you launch an EC2 instance, you are charged by the hour for the compute time that your EC2 instance uses. You are charged by the month for the amount of time that your EC2 instance is used. You are not charged for the amount of storage capacity that your EC2 instance uses.
You are not charged for the amount of network bandwidth that your EC2 instance uses. You are charged for the amount of security that your EC2 instance has.
