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Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2¶

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
The simple web interface of Amazon EC2 allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment.
Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances (called Amazon EC2 instances) to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change.
Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers and system administrators the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate themselves from common failure scenarios.

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Instance Types¶

Amazon EC2 passes on to you the financial benefits of Amazon’s scale. You pay a very low rate for the compute capacity you actually consume. See Amazon EC2 Instance Purchasing Options for a more detailed description.

  • On-Demand Instances— With On-Demand instances, you pay for compute capacity by the hour or the second depending on which instances you run. No longer-term commitments or upfront payments are needed. You can increase or decrease your compute capacity depending on the demands of your application and only pay the specified per hourly rates for the instance you use. On-Demand instances are recommended for:

    • Users that prefer the low cost and flexibility of Amazon EC2 without any up-front payment or long-term commitment
    • Applications with short-term, spiky, or unpredictable workloads that cannot be interrupted
    • Applications being developed or tested on Amazon EC2 for the first time

  • Spot Instances—Spot Instances are available at up to a 90% discount compared to On-Demand prices and let you take advantage of unused Amazon EC2 capacity in the AWS Cloud. You can significantly reduce the cost of running your applications, grow your application’s compute capacity and throughput for the same budget, and enable new types of cloud computing applications. Spot instances are recommended for:

    • Applications that have flexible start and end times
    • Applications that are only feasible at very low compute prices
    • Users with urgent computing needs for large amounts of additional capacity

  • Reserved Instances—Reserved Instances provide you with a significant discount (up to 72%) compared to On-Demand instance pricing. You have the flexibility to change families, operating system types, and tenancies while benefitting from Reserved Instance pricing when you use Convertible Reserved Instances.

  • Savings Plans—Savings Plans are a flexible pricing model that offer low prices on EC2 and AWS Fargate usage, in exchange for a commitment to a consistent amount of usage (measured in $/hour) for a 1 or 3 year term.

  • Dedicated Hosts—A Dedicated Host is a physical EC2 server dedicated for your use. Dedicated Hosts can help you reduce costs by allowing you to use your existing server-bound software licenses, including Windows Server, SQL Server, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (subject to your license terms), and can also help you meet compliance requirements.