Activity 13: What is AWS EC2?
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a part of Amazon's cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), that allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications. EC2 encourages scalable deployment of applications by providing a web service through which a user can boot an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to configure a virtual machine, which Amazon calls an "instance", containing any software desired. A user can create, launch, and terminate server-instances as needed, paying by the second for active servers – hence the term "elastic". EC2 gives users control over the location of instances, allowing for latency optimization and high levels of redundancy.
Instance Types
Instance types Initially, EC2 used Xen virtualization exclusively. However, on November 6, 2017, Amazon announced the new C5 family of instances that were based on a custom architecture around the KVM hypervisor, called Nitro. Each virtual machine, called an "instance", functions as a virtual private server. Amazon sizes instances based on "Elastic Compute Units". The performance of otherwise identical virtual machines may vary. On November 28, 2017, AWS announced a bare-metal instance, a departure from exclusively offering virtualized instance types.
As of January 2019, the following instance types were offered:
General Purpose: A1, T3, T2, M5, M5a, M4, T3a Compute Optimized: C5, C5n, C4
Memory Optimized: R5, R5a, R4, X1e, X1, High Memory, z1d Accelerated Computing: P3, P2, G3, F1 Storage Optimized: H1, I3, D2
As of April 2018, the following payment methods by instance were offered:
On-demand: pay by the hour without commitment. Reserved: rent instances with one-time payment receiving discounts on the hourly charge. Spot: bid-based service: runs the jobs only if the spot price is below the bid specified by bidder. The spot price is claimed to be supply-demand based, however a 2011 study concluded that the price was generally not set to clear the market, but was dominated by an undisclosed reserve price.
Pricing Options
On Demand EC2 instances are priced per hour. An example of this pricing would be $0.096 per hour for a Linux, m5.large, EC2 instance in the us-east-1 region. Pricing will vary based on the instance type, region, and operating system of the instance. Public on-demand pricing for EC2 can be found on the AWS website.
The other pricing models for EC2 have different pricing models.
Spot instances also have a cost per instance hour, but the cost will change on a regular basis based on the supply of EC2 spot capacity.
Reserved Instances and Compute Savings plans are priced per hour. Each of these reservation tools has its own price per hour based on the payment option, term and reservation product being used. These prices are locked in for either a 1-year or 3-year term.
Amazon EC2 price varies from $2.5 per month for "nano" instance with 1 vCPU and 0.5 GB RAM on board to "xlarge" type of instances with 32 vCPU and 488 GB RAM billed up to $3997.19 per month.
The charts above show how Amazon EC2 pricing is compared to similar Cloud Computing services: Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Kamatera, and Vultr.
Auto-Scaling Features
Auto Scaling ensures that you have the right number of instances to handle your workload efficiently, scaling up during high demand and scaling down when demand decreases.
EC2 Auto Scaling helps you maintain the right number of instances based on demand:
Dynamic Scaling: Automatically adjust the number of instances based on CloudWatch metrics or schedules.
Health Checks: Automatically replace unhealthy instances to maintain application availability.
Notifications: Get alerts via Amazon SNS when scaling actions occur.
Fleet Management: Manage a fleet of instances seamlessly.
Why AWS EC2 better than it’s competitors;
AWS EC2
General Purpose: Balanced CPU and memory, suitable for a wide range of applications.
Compute Optimized: High-performance processors, ideal for compute-intensive tasks.
Memory Optimized: High memory capacity, perfect for data analysis and in-memory databases.
Storage Optimized: High disk performance, great for databases and data warehousing.
Accelerated Computing: Specialized hardware for tasks like graphics processing and machine learning.
Pricing: On-Demand, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, Spot Instances, Dedicated Hosts.
Auto-Scaling: Automatically adjusts the number of instances based on demand.
Azure Virtual Machines
General Purpose: Similar to EC2, offering balanced CPU and memory.
Compute Optimized: High-performance processors for compute-intensive tasks.
Memory Optimized: High memory capacity for data analysis and in-memory databases.
Storage Optimized: High disk performance for databases and data warehousing.
Accelerated Computing: Specialized hardware for tasks like graphics processing and machine learning.
Pricing: Pay-as-you-go, Reserved Instances, Spot Pricing, Dedicated Hosts.
Auto-Scaling: Automatically adjusts the number of VMs based on demand.
Google Cloud Compute Engine
General Purpose: Balanced CPU and memory, suitable for a wide range of applications.
Compute Optimized: High-performance processors for compute-intensive tasks.
Memory Optimized: High memory capacity for data analysis and in-memory databases.
Storage Optimized: High disk performance for databases and data warehousing.
Accelerated Computing: Specialized hardware for tasks like graphics processing and machine learning.
Pricing: On-Demand, Preemptible VMs, Committed Use Discounts, Custom Machine Types.
Auto-Scaling: Automatically adjusts the number of instances based on demand.
Hosting Websites: Businesses, regardless of size, use EC2 to host their websites, ensuring they can handle traffic efficiently.
Application Development: Companies utilize EC2 for developing, testing, and deploying applications without the need for physical servers.
Data Analysis: Businesses run data analytics and big data applications on EC2 to gain insights and make data-driven decisions.
Content Delivery: Streaming services use EC2 to deliver content to users, ensuring smooth and scalable streaming.
Financial Modelling: Banks and financial institutions use EC2 for running complex financial models and simulations.
For further understanding, you may visit these sites provided below;
"Amazon AWS vs Microsoft Azure vs Google Cloud vs Kamatera vs Vultr - 5 Best Cloud Services". 5 Best Cloud Services. 2017-12-02. Retrieved 2017-12-24.
Jeff Barr (30 November 2020). "New – Use Amazon EC2 Mac Instances to Build & Test macOS, iOS, ipadOS, tvOS, and watchOS Apps". AWS News Blog. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
"Citrix and Amazon Web Services (AWS)". citrix.com. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
^ "Now Available – Compute-Intensive C5 Instances for Amazon EC2". 6 November 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ "Amazon EC2 FAQs". Retrieved November 7, 2017.
^ "AWS re:Invent 2017: NEW LAUNCH! Amazon EC2 Bare Metal Instances (CMP330)". YouTube. 30 November 2017. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved December 4, 2017.
^ J. Dejun, G. Pierre and C.-H. Chi. EC2 Performance Analysis for Resource Provisioning of Service-Oriented Applications. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Non-Functional Properties and SLA Management in Service-Oriented Computing, November 2009.
^ Lardinois, Frederic (November 28, 2017). "AWS launches bare metal instances". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 4, 2017.