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Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Secure resizable compute capacity in the cloud

Like a VM only hosted in AWS instead of your own data center

Providing you the capacity you want when needed, giving you full control of the server

Brief History

Launched in 2006 and was complete game changer basically over night.

Pay only for what you use, and provides us a way to have NO wasted capacity

On Premises Infrastructure

3-5 year contracts

10-20 business days average to get server online

large upfront capital expense

Pricing Options

  • On Demand
  • Pay by the hour or second
  • Reserved
  • Reserved capacity for up to 1 - 3 years
  • Up to 72% discount on the hourly charge
  • Spot
  • Purchase unused capacity at discount of up to 90%
  • Prices fluctuate with demand
  • Dedicated
  • Most expensive
  • Physical EC2 servers dedicated for your needs

On Demand

Would be used when you need:

  • Flexibility of Amazon Ec2 without upfront payment or long-term commitment
  • Short term applications with spiky or unpredictable workloads
  • Testing the water with applications being developed or tested for first time

Reserved Instances

Would be used when you have:

  • Predictable usage
  • Specific capacity requirements
  • Pay up front for discounts!

Reserved instances operate within a Region!

Convertable RIs

Up to 54% off the on demand price and has the option to change to a different RI type of equal or greater value

Scheduled RIs

Launch within the time window you define. Match your capacity reservation to a predictable recurring schedule that only requires a fraction of a day, week, or month

Spot Instances

Spot Diagram

  • Use when you have flexible start and end times
  • Applications that are only feasible at very low compute prices
  • Have urgent need for large amounts of additional computing capacity

Dedicated Hosts

  • Compliance
  • Regulatory requirements that may not support multi-tenant virtualization
  • On-Demand
  • Licensing
  • Great for licensing that does not support multi-tenancy or cloud deployments
  • Reserved
  • Can be purhcased for up to 70% of on-demand price

AWS Cli

follows this format

aws <SERVICE> <COMMAND> example aws s3 ls

Will need to have Secret access key as well as access key id

supported for linux, windows, and MacOS

Exam Tips

  • Ec2 is like a VM hosted in AWS instead of your own data center
  • Wait only minutes not months for instances
  • Pricing options
  • On Demand
    • Pay by the hour or second
  • Spot
    • Purchase unused capacity with great discount but can be terminated
  • Reserved
    • reserve capacity for 1 to 3 years with up to 72% discount
  • Dedicated
    • Compliance or regulatory obligations to meet
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