What is ec2 in aws with example

Tutorial By Jun 07, 2023 No Comments

Introduction

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a cornerstone of Amazon Web Services (AWS), providing resizable compute capacity in the cloud. EC2’s scalability and secure cloud computing environment empower businesses to grow and adapt.

What is Amazon EC2?

EC2 is an integral part of AWS, offering flexible and easily resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It’s designed to expedite web-scale computing for developers. In essence, it’s a simple interface that allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction.

EC2 allows you to leverage Amazon’s proven computing environment to scale applications seamlessly. You can increase or decrease capacity within minutes, not hours or days. You can commission one, hundreds, or even thousands of server instances concurrently.

How Does EC2 Work?

EC2 offers virtual servers—called instances—for rent in Amazon’s data centers. It provides a variety of instance types optimized to fit different use cases, each with varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity.

Amazon EC2 uses Amazon Machine Images (AMI) as templates for instances. An AMI includes the operating system and any additional software required. When you launch an instance from an AMI, you can choose instance types, security groups, and storage options.

A Real-World Example

Consider a growing e-commerce platform. Initially, they operated with a small on-premises server. However, as the business expanded, the server struggled to handle the increasing traffic, leading to slow site performance and unhappy customers.

The company turned to Amazon EC2. They selected an instance type matching their requirements and launched multiple instances to handle their traffic. EC2’s auto-scaling feature allowed the business to automatically adjust the number of instances based on demand. During peak times, more instances were added. During off-peak hours, instances were reduced—saving costs.

This flexibility, coupled with EC2’s pay-as-you-go model, enabled the e-commerce platform to deliver smooth customer experiences while keeping infrastructure costs under control.

Conclusion

Amazon EC2 is a game-changer for businesses, offering scalable and secure cloud computing solutions. It has democratized access to on-demand computing resources, allowing businesses of all sizes to innovate and grow. With EC2, you no longer have to worry about procuring, maintaining, and scaling physical servers—Amazon takes care of it all.

References

  1. Amazon Web Services, Inc. Amazon EC2. Retrieved from https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is an EC2 instance?

An EC2 instance is a virtual server in Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for running applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure.

2. What is the use of Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 provides scalable computing capacity in the AWS cloud. It is used to deploy applications, host web server space, and for back-end servers for API calls and accessing databases.

3. How does Amazon EC2 pricing work?

EC2 follows a pay-as-you-go approach. You pay for the compute capacity you use. The pricing varies depending on the instance type, region, and operating system.

4. Can I change my EC2 instance type?

Yes, you can change the instance type of your EC2 instance after it’s been created. You will need to stop the instance, change the instance type, and then restart the instance.

5. Is Amazon EC2 IaaS or PaaS?

Amazon EC2 is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It provides you with basic computing infrastructure such as servers, storage, and networking resources, which you can use to deploy your applications.

Author

I'm Abhay Singh, an Architect with 9 Years of It experience. AWS Certified Solutions Architect.

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