AWS Compute Flashcards
Web service with which you can run virtual server “instances” in the cloud
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
Amazon EC2 instance operating systems:
Windows, Linux, or MacOS
EC2 Features
Simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction
Designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers
Changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you use
Provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate them from common failure scenarios
Benefits of EC2 include:
Elastic Web-Scale computing – you can increase or decrease capacity within minutes not hours and commission one to thousands of instances simultaneously.
Completely controlled – You have complete control include root access to each instance and can stop and start instances without losing data and using web service APIs.
Flexible Cloud Hosting Services – you can choose from multiple instance types, operating systems, and software packages as well as instances with varying memory, CPU, and storage configurations.
Integrated – EC2 is integrated with most AWS services such as S3, RDS, and VPC to provide a complete, secure solution.
Reliable – EC2 offers a highly reliable environment where replacement instances can be rapidly and predictably commissioned with SLAs of 99.99% for each region.
Secure – EC2 works in conjunction with VPC to provide a secure location with an IP address range you specify and offers Security Groups, Network ACLs, and IPSec VPN features.
Inexpensive – Amazon passes on the financial benefits of scale by charging very low rates and on a capacity consumed basis.
Special type of virtual appliance that is used to create a virtual machine within the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (“EC2”)
Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
AMI Features
One or more EBS snapshots, or, for instance-store-backed AMIs, a template for the root volume of the instance (for example, an operating system, an application server, and applications).
Launch permissions that control which AWS accounts can use the AMI to launch instances.
A block device mapping that specifies the volumes to attach to the instance when it’s launched.
3 main categories of AMIs
Community AMIs – free to use, generally you just select the operating system you want.
AWS Marketplace AMIs – pay to use, generally come packaged with additional, licensed software.
My AMIs – AMIs that you create yourself
Data that is supplied by the user at instance launch in the form of a script
User data
Data about your instance that you can use to configure or manage the running instance
Instance metadata
User Data limit
16KB
This tool allows you to query the instance metadata without having to type out the full URI or category names
Instance Metadata Query tool
True or False:
User data and metadata are not encrypted
True
Good for users that want the low cost and flexibility of EC2 without any up-front payment or long-term commitment.
Applications with short term, spiky, or unpredictable workloads that cannot be interrupted.
Applications being developed or tested on EC2 for the first time
EC2 On-demand Pricing
Applications with steady state or predictable usage.
Applications that require reserved capacity.
Users can make up-front payments to reduce their total computing costs even further
Standard Reserved Instances (RIs) provide up to 75% off on-demand price.
Convertible RIs provide up to 54% off on-demand price – provides the capability to change the attributes of the RI if the exchange results in the creation of RIs of equal or greater value.
Scheduled RIs are available to launch within the time window you reserve. This option allows you to match your capacity reservation to a predictable recurring schedule that only requires a fraction of a day, a week, or a month.
EC2 Reserved Instance Pricing
Applications that have flexible start and end times.
Applications that are only feasible at very low compute prices.
Users with an urgent need for a large amount of additional compute capacity.
If Amazon terminate your instances you do not pay, if you terminate you pay for the hour.
EC2 Spot Instance Price
Physical servers dedicated just for your use.
You then have control over which instances are deployed on that host.
Available as On-Demand or with Dedicated Host Reservation.
Useful if you have server-bound software licenses that use metrics like per-core, per-socket, or per-VM.
Each dedicated host can only run one EC2 instance size and type.
Good for regulatory compliance or licensing requirements.
Predictable performance.
Complete isolation.
Most expensive option.
Billing is per host
EC2 Dedicated host
Virtualized instances on hardware just for you.
Also uses physically dedicated EC2 servers.
Does not provide the additional visibility and controls of dedicated hosts (e.g. how instances are placed on a server).
Billing is per instance.
May share hardware with other non-dedicated instances in the same account.
Available as On-Demand, Reserved Instances, and Spot Instances.
Cost additional $2 per hour per region
EC2 Dedicated Instance
A flexible pricing model that provides savings of up to 72% on your AWS compute usage.
This pricing model offers lower prices on Amazon EC2 instances usage, regardless of instance family, size, OS, tenancy, or AWS Region.
Also applies to AWS Fargate and AWS Lambda usage
EC2 Savings Plan
Heavy data usage (e.g. file servers, DWs) Instance Family
Hint: DATA
D Family
Memory optimized Instance Family
Hint: RAM
R Family