EC2 - Elastic Compute Cloud | AWS

1. EC2 introduction

EC2 stands for Elastic compute cloud. It is a compute service provided by Amazon web services. It give freedom to its user to create there own virtual computers by using AWS's hardwares.

User can create their own virtual computer/servers according to their needs. User can easily scale up/down memory/storage/processors. Each virtualy created computers/servers are called an Instance

2. Features of EC2

• Scalability : Based on the demand of users/customer , its resources can be easily scaled up or down.
• Flexibility : It provides different type of instances, configuration to start quickly. It can easily connects with other aws services.
• Availability : You can create instances across multiple geographic regions and Availability Zones.
• Security : AWS provides robust security features, disaster recovery and other alarm & monitoring servies.

3. Components of EC2

1. Instances : Every virtual computer/server created in ec2 is a instance. Get deep understanding about instance types, families, lifecycle from 👉 here
2. Amazon machine images (AMIs) : It is a image which is used to launch an instance with specific OS and configurations. 👉Learn more
3. Key Pairs : Its a key generated by AWS to access the instance using SSH or RDP. And used for authentication.👉Learn more
4. Security Groups : Security groups are like a firewall who controls the inbound and outbound traffic of instance.👉Learn more
5. Elastic Block Store (EBS) : It is the persistent storage volume for EC2 instances. It comes with different options like: HDD , SSD ... 👉Learn more
6. Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) : It is used to distributes incoming traffic across multiple instances to improve application fault tolerance.👉Learn more
7. Auto Scaling : It automatically adjusts the number of EC2 instances based on demand to ensure application availability and cost-efficiency.👉Learn more

4. Applictions of EC2

1. Web Hosting : Deploy scalable and high-availability web applications.
2. Big Data Analytics : Process large datasets with compute-optimized instances.
3. Machine Learning : Train and deploy ML models using GPU instances.
4. Disaster Recovery : Set up backup environments with minimal upfront costs.
5. Gaming : Host game servers with low latency and high performance.
6. Dev/Test Environments : Quickly spin up environments for development and testing purposes.

5. Best security practices

1. Secure Access : Use key pairs for SSH access and avoid using default credentials.
2. Least Privilege Principle : Assign minimal IAM roles and permissions required for tasks.
3. Regular Patching : Keep operating systems and applications updated with the latest security patches.
4. Monitor and Audit : Use AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch for logging and monitoring activities.
5. Implement Security Groups and NACLs : Define strict inbound and outbound traffic rules.
6. Enable Encryption : Encrypt EBS volumes and data in transit using SSL/TLS.