Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

EC2 enables you to provision computing environments called instances. With Amazon EC2, you have the flexibility to choose the hardware resources you need. You are in control of the operating system and any other software that will run on the instance.

EC2 runs within a specific AWS AZ. Typically, EC2 instances provide virtualized access to the underlying host machine resources.

Pricing options

1. On demand: Pay by the hour or the second depending on instance run
2. Reserved: Reserved capacity for one or three years. Up to 72% discount on the hourly charge. regional
3. Spot: Purchase unused cpaacity at a discount of up to 90%. Prices fluctuate with supply and demand
4. Dedicated: A physical EC2 server dedicated for your use. The most expensive option.

On demand

Flexible → low cost and fleixibility of EC2

Short-term → applications with short term or unpredictable workloads

Testing the water → if testing on EC2 for the first time

Reserved

Predictable usage → apps with steady state or predictable usage

Specific Capacity requirements → applications that require reserved capacity

Pay up-front → can make up front paymetns to reduce their total computing costs even further

Standard RIs → up to 72% off on-demand price