Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) provides on-demand, scalable computing capacity in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. Using Amazon EC2 reduces hardware costs so you can develop and deploy applications faster. You can use Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few virtual servers as you need, configure security and networking, and manage storage. You can add capacity (scale up) to handle compute-heavy tasks, such as monthly or yearly processes, or spikes in website traffic. When usage decreases, you can reduce capacity (scale down) again.
Amazon EC2 provides the following high-level features:
Amazon EC2 offers a wide range of virtual servers, known as instances, allowing you to choose the exact CPU, memory, storage, and instance type that best suits your application or workload.
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) provide pre-configured templates that streamline the process of creating instances. These AMIs come equipped with everything from the operating system to additional software packages.
With an extensive selection of instance types, EC2 enables you to match your computing resources to your specific requirements. Whether you need high CPU performance, ample memory, or optimized storage, there’s an instance type for you.
EC2 ensures secure access with key pairs. AWS stores the public key while you retain the private key for safe and encrypted authentication.
You have the flexibility to choose between instance store volumes, ideal for temporary data that’s deleted upon instance stoppage, and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes for persistent, reliable data storage.
EC2 offers a vast array of regions and availability zones, allowing you to strategically place your resources for optimal performance, redundancy, and compliance.
Protect your instances with security groups, which act as virtual firewalls. Customize inbound and outbound traffic rules to enhance the security of your network.
Ensure consistent connectivity with static IPv4 addresses, allowing you to associate an IP address with your instance, even if it’s stopped and started.
Organize and categorize your EC2 resources by assigning metadata tags. This simplifies resource management and tracking.
Create Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) to establish logically isolated networks within the AWS cloud. VPCs offer enhanced security and control over network traffic.