An Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instance is a virtual server in the cloud provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). EC2 instances are the fundamental building blocks of cloud computing on AWS. They allow users to rent virtual machines on which they can run their applications.
Key features of EC2 instances include:
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Scalability: EC2 instances can be easily scaled up or down based on workload demands. Users can increase or decrease the number of instances to match the requirements of their applications.
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Flexibility: AWS offers a wide variety of EC2 instance types optimized for different use cases, such as compute-intensive, memory-intensive, storage-optimized, and GPU instances. Users can choose the instance type that best suits their application requirements.
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Pay-as-you-go pricing: With EC2, users pay only for the compute capacity they consume on an hourly basis, with no long-term commitments. This pay-as-you-go pricing model allows for cost-effective provisioning of compute resources.
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Integration with other AWS services: EC2 instances can easily integrate with other AWS services such as Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, and AWS Lambda, enabling users to build highly scalable and flexible applications.
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Security: EC2 instances can be secured using AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management) to control access to resources, security groups to define firewall rules, and AWS Key Management Service (KMS) for encryption of data at rest.
Overall, Amazon EC2 instances provide users with on-demand, resizable compute capacity in the cloud, allowing them to quickly deploy and scale applications without the need to invest in physical hardware.
