EC2

What is Amazon EC2 #

An Amazon EC2 instance is a virtual server in the AWS Cloud. When you launch an EC2 instance, the instance type that you specify determines the hardware available to your instance. Each instance type offers a different balance of compute, memory, network, and storage resources.

EC2 sizing and configuration options #

• Operating System (OS) - Linux, Windows, Mac OS
• How much compute power & CPU cores
• How much RAM
• How much storage space
  • Network-attached (EBS & EFS)
  • Hardware (EC2 Instance Store)
• Network card: speed of the card, Public IP address
• Firewall rules: security group
• Bootstrap script (configure at first launch): EC2 User Data

Amazon EC2 Instance Types #

More info: EC2 Instance Types, EC2Instances.info

• General Purpose (M, T) - General
• Compute Optimized (C) - Compute bound applications that benefit from thigh performance processors
• Memory Optimized (R, X) - Optimized to deliver fast performance for workloads that process large data sets in memory (i.e. ElastiCache)
• Accelerated Computing (P, G, Trn, Inf, DL, F, VT1) - Calculations, graphics processing or data pattern matching
• Storage Optimized (I, Dx, H1) - High, sequential read and write access to very large data sets on local storage. Low-latency, random I/O operations per second (IOPS)
• HPC Optimized (Hpc) - High Performance Computing - complex simulations and deep learning workloads

Instance type naming conventions #

More info: Amazon EC2 Instance type naming conventions

Example #

More info: Amazon EC2 Instance type naming conventions

Launching EC2 instance #

EC2 > Launch Instance

• Name and Tags
• AMI
• Instance Type (t3.micro,t3.large,etc.)
• Key Pair
• Network Settings (Security Group)
• Storage
• Advanced Settings
  • Domain Join
  • IAM Instance Profile
  • Hostname type
  • Instance auto-recovery
  • Shutdown behavior
  • Termination protection
  • Placement group
  • Purchasing option
    • None
    • Capacity Blocks
    • Spot Instances
  • Capacity reservation
  • User data

Example user data #

User data is only bootstrap script and only starts once during the machine creation.

#!/bin/bash
# Use this for your user data (script from top to bottom)
# install httpd (Linux 2 version)
yum update -y
yum install -y httpd
systemctl start httpd
systemctl enable httpd
echo "<h1>Hello World from $(hostname -f)</h1>" > /var/www/html/index.html

Connecting to EC2 from Windows Terminal #

ssh -i .\.ssh\id_rsa_aws25 ec2-user@ec2-3-95-191-175.compute-1.amazonaws.com

EC2 Instances Purchasing options #

• On-Demand instances - short workload, predictable pricing, pay by second
  • Pay for what used
    • Linux or Windows - billing per second after the first minute
    • All other operating systems - billing per hour
  • Highest cost but no upfront payment
  • No long-term commitment
  • Recommended for short-term and un-interrupted workloads
• Reserved (1 & 3 years)
  • Up to 72% discount compared to On-demand
  • You reserve a specific instance attributes (Instance Type, Region, Tenancy, OS)
  • Reserved Instances - long workloads
  • Payment options - No upfront, Partial Upfront, All Upfront
  • Scope: Regional or Zonal
  • Recommended for steady-state usage applications (think database)
  • Can be bought and sold in the Reserved Instance Market place
  • Convertible Reserved Instances - long workload with flexible instances
    • Can change the EC2 instance type, instance family, OS, scope and tenancy
    • Up to 66% discount
• Saving plans (1 & 3 years) - commitment to an amount of usage, long workloads
  • Get discount based on long-term usage
  • Commit to a certain type of usage ($10/hour for 1 or 3 years)
  • Usage beyond EC2 Savings Plans is billed at the On-Demand price
  • Locked to a specific instance family & AWS region
  • Flexible across
    • Instance Size (e.g. m5.xlarge, m5.2xlarge)
    • OS (e.g. Linux, Windows)
    • Tenancy (Host, Dedicated, Default)
• Spot Instances - short workloads, cheap, can lose instances
  • Up to 90% discount
  • Instances can be “lost” at any point if max price is less than current spot price
  • Recommended for workloads that are resilient to failure
    • Batch jobs
    • Data analysis
    • Image processing
• Dedicated Hosts - book an entire physical server, control instance placement
  • A physical server with EC2 instance capacity fully dedicated to your use
  • Recommended for for companies with strong compliance requirements OR server-bound software licenses (per-socket, per-core)
  • Purchasing Options:
    • On-demand
    • Reserved
  • Most expensive option
• Dedicated Instances - no other customers will share your hardware
  • Instances run on a dedicated hardware
  • May share hardware with other instances in the same account
  • No control over instance placement

Dedicated Host vs Dedicated Instance: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/dedicated-instance.html

• Capacity Reservations - reserve capacity in a specific AZ for any duration

» Sources « #

• EC2 Instance Types
• Amazon EC2 Instance type naming conventions
• EC2Instances.info
• Dedicated Host vs Dedicated Instance:

Full YouTube Rahul’s AWS Course: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7iMyoQPMtAN4xl6oWzafqJebfay7K8KP

» References « #

• Security Groups

» Table of contents (CLF-C02) « #

» Disclaimer « #