EC2 · robk.uk

Table of Contents

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

Series	Options
- C – Compute optimized - Hpc – High performance computing - I – Storage optimized - M – General purpose - P – GPU accelerated - R – Memory optimized	- a – AMD processors - i – Intel processors - b – Block storage optimization - d – Instance store volumes - e – Extra storage (for storage optimized instance types), extra memory (for memory optimized instance types), or extra GPU memory (for accelerated computing instance types). - n – Network and EBS optimized - q – Qualcomm inference accelerators - z – High CPU frequency

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