Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Part 2)

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) | BlockStellart




Access Amazon EC2

You can create and manage your Amazon EC2 instances using the following interfaces:

  • Amazon EC2 Console- An easy-to-use web interface for creating and handling Amazon EC2 instances and resources. After registering for an AWS account, you can enter the Amazon EC2 console by logging into the AWS Management Console and choosing EC2 from the homepage.

  • AWS Command Line Interface- Allows you to engage with AWS services through commands in your command-line interface. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

  • AWS Cloud Formation- Amazon EC2 allows for the creation of resources through AWS CloudFormation. You design a template in either JSON or YAML format that outlines your AWS resources, and AWS CloudFormation handles the provisioning and configuration of those resources on your behalf. You have the ability to reuse your CloudFormation templates to deploy the same resources numerous times, whether within the same Region and account or across different Regions and accounts.

  • AWS SDKs- If you would rather create applications using APIs specific to a language rather than sending requests via HTTP or HTTPS, AWS offers libraries, sample code, tutorials, and additional resources for developers. These libraries include fundamental functions that automate processes like signing your requests cryptographically, retrying requests, and managing error responses, which simplifies the initial setup for you.

  • AWS Tools For PowerShell- A collection of PowerShell modules that leverage the capabilities provided by the .NET SDK. The PowerShell Tools allow you to perform scripting operations on your AWS resources directly from the PowerShell command line.

  • Query API- Amazon EC2 offers a Query API. These requests are made using HTTP or HTTPS protocols, utilizing the HTTP methods GET or POST along with a Query parameter called Action.

Pricing For Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 provides the following pricing options:

  1. Free Tier- You can get started with Amazon EC2 for free.
  2. On-demand Instances- Pay for the instances that you use by the second, with a minimum of 60 seconds, with no long-term commitments or upfront payments.
  3. Savings Plans- You can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs by making a commitment to a consistent amount of usage, in USD per hour, for a term of 1 or 3 years.
  4. Reserved Instances- You can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs by making a commitment to a specific instance configuration, including instance type and Region, for a term of 1 or 3 years.
  5. Spot Instances- Request unused EC2 instances, which can reduce your Amazon EC2 costs significantly.
  6. Dedicated Hosts- Reduce costs by using a physical EC2 server that is fully dedicated for your use, either On Demand or as part of a Savings Plan. You can use your existing server-bound software licenses and get help meeting compliance requirements.
  7. On-Demand Capacity Reservations- Reserve compute capacity for your EC2 instances in a specific Availability Zone for any duration of time.
  8. Per-second billing- Removes the cost of unused minutes and seconds from your bill.

Conclusion

The other aspects of EC2 and its cost effective methods are discussed.






























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