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Activity 13: What is AWS EC2?

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Bacia, John Ruzzel A.
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Introduction:

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a fundamental service within Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides virtual servers, also known as instances. These instances act like physical servers, allowing you to run applications, host websites, and perform various computing tasks in the cloud. EC2 is a core component of AWS, providing the foundation for many other services and enabling businesses to scale their computing resources on demand.

Key Features:

  • Instance Types: EC2 offers a wide variety of instance types, each optimized for specific workloads:

    • General Purpose: Suitable for a broad range of applications.

    • Compute Optimized: Designed for CPU-intensive tasks.

    • Memory Optimized: Ideal for applications that require large amounts of memory.

    • Storage Optimized: Optimized for high-throughput storage operations.

    • GPU Instances: Equipped with graphics processing units for tasks like machine learning and video rendering.

  • Pricing Options: EC2 offers flexible pricing models:

    • On-Demand Instances: Pay for usage by the hour.

    • Reserved Instances: Commit to a specific instance type and duration for discounted pricing.

    • Spot Instances: Bid for unused EC2 capacity at significantly lower prices, but instances can be interrupted.

  • Auto-Scaling: EC2 allows you to automatically scale your instances up or down based on demand. This ensures your applications can handle traffic spikes and remain performant.

  • Security Features: EC2 provides features like security groups (network firewalls), IAM (Identity and Access Management) roles, and encryption to protect your instances and data.

Comparison with Competitors:

  • Azure Virtual Machines: Microsoft Azure offers virtual machines similar to EC2. Azure VMs provide similar functionality and pricing options.

  • Google Compute Engine: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers Compute Engine, its virtual machine service. GCP VMs have strong integrations with other GCP services and are often used for data-intensive workloads.

Use Cases:

  • Web Hosting: Businesses can use EC2 to host websites, web applications, and APIs.

  • Application Deployment: Deploying and running applications, including databases, web servers, and custom software.

  • Data Processing: Performing data analysis, machine learning, and other computationally intensive tasks.

  • Game Development: Hosting game servers and running game logic.

  • DevOps and Testing: Provisioning development and testing environments quickly and easily.