Amazon EC2 Basics

Introduction

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It allows users to run applications on virtual machines (instances) and offers scalability, flexibility, and security.

Key Concepts

• **Instances**: Virtual servers for running applications.
• **Amazon Machine Images (AMIs)**: Pre-configured templates for launching instances.
• **Instance Types**: Different configurations of CPU, memory, and storage for various workloads.
• **Security Groups**: Virtual firewalls to control inbound and outbound traffic to instances.

Creating an EC2 Instance

Follow these steps to create an EC2 instance:

                flowchart TD
                    A[Start] --> B[Log in to AWS Management Console]
                    B --> C[Navigate to EC2 Dashboard]
                    C --> D[Click on Launch Instance]
                    D --> E[Choose an AMI]
                    E --> F[Select Instance Type]
                    F --> G[Configure Instance Details]
                    G --> H[Add Storage]
                    H --> I[Configure Security Group]
                    I --> J[Review and Launch]
                    J --> K[Launch Instance]
                    K --> L[Instance Running]
                

Code Example: Launching an EC2 Instance via CLI

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-0abcdef1234567890 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-name MyKeyPair

This command launches a single EC2 instance using a specified AMI and instance type.

Best Practices

• Use IAM roles for improved security.
• Regularly back up data using AMIs and snapshots.
• Monitor resources with Amazon CloudWatch.
• Optimize instance types based on workload requirements.

FAQ