In the wave of digital transformation, cloud computing, as a core component of infrastructure, has provided unprecedented flexibility and scalability for enterprises worldwide. Among them, Amazon EC2, as one of the flagship services of Amazon Web Services (AWS), has been a key driver of this transformation since its launch in 2006. EC2 has not only redefined the way computing resources are accessed and managed but also continues to lead the development trends in the cloud services market.
What is Amazon EC2？
EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), also known as virtual servers in the cloud, is an Amazon Web Service used for creating and running virtual machines in the cloud. Amazon EC2 is a system that allows users to rent cloud computers to run their desired applications. By providing web services, EC2 enables users to flexibly run their Amazon machine images, allowing them to run any software or application on these virtual machines. Users can create, run, and terminate their virtual servers at any time, paying only for the time they use, making the system “elastic” in usage. EC2 enables users to control the geographical location of the host running their virtual servers, optimizing for latency and redundancy. For example, to minimize maintenance downtime, users can run their virtual servers in every time zone.
What is an Amazon EC2 instance?
An Amazon EC2 instance is a rentable virtual server within Amazon EC2. When you launch an EC2 instance, you’re essentially starting a virtual machine in AWS’s cloud with specific computing power, memory, storage, and networking resources configured.
There are various types of EC2 instances designed to meet different workload requirements, including:
1. General-purpose instances: Provide a balanced mix of computing, memory, and networking resources, suitable for a variety of applications such as web servers and application servers.
2. Compute-optimized instances: Designed for high-compute tasks, suitable for batch processing, high-performance computing (HPC), and scientific computing tasks.
3. Memory-optimized instances: Equipped with large amounts of memory, suitable for data-intensive applications such as large databases, in-memory databases, and data analytics.
4. Storage-optimized instances: Tailored for workloads requiring large amounts of fast storage access, such as NoSQL databases and big data processing.
5. Accelerated computing instances: Equipped with specialized hardware (e.g., GPU) to accelerate tasks like graphics rendering, machine learning, and scientific simulations.
Each EC2 instance is based on an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), which is a template containing the operating system, application servers, applications, and user-defined software configurations. Users can choose different AMIs to launch instances based on their needs and can increase or decrease the number of instances as per business requirements, enabling rapid scaling or shrinking of resources to achieve cost-effectiveness and address varying workload demands.
Key Features of Amazon EC2
EC2 is a computing service provided by AWS, existing in the form of EC2 Instance, so an EC2 instance can be considered as a virtual machine.
A pre-configured EC2 image is called an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), which contains the operating system you packaged, along with the corresponding applications and configurations.
Different types of EC2 instances include varying CPU, memory, storage, and network performance.
AWS defaults to and recommends accessing EC2 instances using Key Pair, with AWS storing the public key while you are responsible for storing the private key.
EC2 instance store volumes are ephemeral storage, meaning that once you stop or terminate your EC2 instance, the data within this storage will permanently disappear.
On the other hand, Amazon EBS volumes is persistent storage, allowing you to retain data within the EBS storage regardless of the state of the EC2 instance. This type of storage is convenient for data disk migrations and has various use cases.
Security Group act as firewalls by inspecting packet ports, protocols, and source IP addresses.
Elastic IP address allows you to easily assign a fixed public IP address to your EC2 instance and ensures that this address remains valid even after shutdowns and reboots.
Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a network component of AWS that allows logical isolation of your AWS resources from those of other users. You can also use VPC to connect with your physical data center.
Advantages of Amazon EC2
With Amazon EC2, you can scale your capacity up or down in minutes (rather than hours or days). You can manage one, hundreds, or even thousands of server instances simultaneously. Additionally, you can use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling to ensure the availability of your EC2 fleet and automatically scale it up or down based on demand, maximizing performance and minimizing costs. AWS Auto Scaling allows you to scale various services.
You have complete control over your instances (including root access), allowing them to interact with any computer as needed. You can save data to the boot partition while stopping any instance and then restart it using the web service API. Instances can be remotely rebooted via the web service API, and you also have access to the console output of the instance.
There are multiple instance types, operating systems, and software packages for you to choose from. With Amazon EC2, you can select the ideal memory, CPU, instance storage, and boot partition size configurations for your chosen operating system and applications. For example, optional operating systems include various Linux distributions and Microsoft Windows Server.
Amazon EC2 integrates with most AWS services, such as Amazon S3, mazon RDS, and Amazon VPC, to provide comprehensive and secure computing, querying, processing, and cloud storage solutions for a variety of applications.
Amazon EC2 offers a highly reliable environment where replacement instances can be rapidly launched in a predictable manner. The service operates within Amazon’s mature network infrastructure and data centers. The commitment of the Amazon EC2 Service Level Agreement is to provide 99.99% availability for each Amazon EC2 region.
AWS places utmost importance on cloud security. Amazon EC2 works in conjunction with Amazon VPC to provide secure and robust networking capabilities for your compute resources.
Amazon EC2 can bring you the economic benefits of Amazon scale. You only pay a minimal fee for the computing capacity you actually consume.
You can start using Amazon EC2 through various methods. You can utilize the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or a variety of AWS development toolkits.
Amazon EC2 FAQs
1. Q: What is Auto Scaling in EC2?
A: Auto Scaling is a service that automatically adjusts the number of EC2 instances to handle changes in demand. You set the conditions (such as CPU utilization), and Auto Scaling will launch or terminate instances as needed, ensuring that you have the right capacity at the lowest possible cost.
2. Q: How do I back up my EC2 instances?
A: AWS provides several ways to back up EC2 instances, the most common being Amazon EBS snapshots. You can manually create a snapshot of an EBS volume or automate the process using AWS Backup or by scripting with the AWS CLI or SDKs. Snapshots are point-in-time copies of your volume data that can be used to restore your instance in case of failure.
Conclusion
Amazon EC2 stands as a cornerstone in the landscape of cloud computing, offering unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and control to enterprises of all sizes. With its diverse range of instance types, seamless integration with other AWS services, robust security measures, and cost-effective pricing model, EC2 continues to empower businesses to innovate and thrive in the digital age. Its reliability, ease of use, and commitment to customer satisfaction further solidify its position as a leader in cloud infrastructure services, driving forward the ongoing evolution of the modern IT landscape.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery, as a software specializing in virtual machine protection, has efficient backup, fast recovery and seamless migration capabilities, is compatible with a variety of virtualization environments, and will soon expand its powerful functions to the Amazon EC2 platform to provide solid protection for cloud instances.
