Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

What is EC2 :

Amazon EC2 Provides secure and resizable compute capacity in the AWS cloud.

• You can use Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few virtual servers as you need. Configure security and networking and manage storage.
• Amazon EC2 enables you to scale up or down the instance.
• Amazon EC2 is having two storage option i.e. EBS and Instance store.
• Preconfigured templets are available known as amazon machine image (AMI).
• By default, when you create an EC2 account with amazon, your account is limited to a maximum of 20 instances per EC2 regions with two default high I/O instances.

Types of EC2 instances :

Here are different types of EC2 Instances:???????????????????????????????????????????????????

1. General Purpose Instances
2. Compute Optimized Instances
3. Memory-Optimized Instances
4. Accelerated Computing Instances
5. Storage Optimized Instances
6. High memory optimized

Now, let us take a look at what each of these five EC2 instance types offers in more detail:

1.???? General Purpose Instances :

General purpose instances provides a balance of compute memory and networking resources, and can be used for a variety of workloads. Among the most popular and widely used EC2 instance types, the General Purpose instance is a good choice if you are new to cloud computing or AWS in general.

EC2 General-purpose instance Types :

Here are the details of the various general-purpose instances that you can choose from:

i. A1 instance

A1 instances are the ARM-based offering of EC2 instance types – as compared to others that use either Intel or AMD processing. This type of instance is more suited for web servers and containerized microservices – along with applications that are run on open-source tools like Java or Python.

ii. M5 instance

This is the latest generation of general-purpose instances that is powered by the Intel Xeon Platinum 8175 3.1Ghz processor. With their cloud computing power, M5 instances provide a balance of computing, memory, and networking power. This instance type is suited for small-to-midsize databases, data processing tasks, and as a backend server for enterprise applications like SAP or SharePoint.

iii. T3/ T3a instance

Available with burstable instances, T3 and T3a are the respective general-purpose instance types powered with Intel and AMD processors. These instance types are a good fit if you are looking for a cheaper and less powerful option than the M5 fixed instance. They are commonly used for long-lasting application instances such as websites, web applications, and code repositories.

2.??? Compute Optimized Instance :

Compute optimized Instances are ideal for compute bound applications that benefit from high performance processors. As the name suggests, compute-optimized instances are used during compute-intensive workloads that can benefit from processors with high computing power.?

EC2 Compute Optimized instances Types :

Here are the details of the two types of Compute-optimized instances that you can choose from:

i. C5/ C5n instance

The C5 series of instances are suitable for applications like online gaming, scientific modeling, media transcoding – which require raw computing power. C5 instances are executed on the Intel Xeon Platinum processor and have recorded a 25% improvement in speed as compared to the previous C4 instance generation. With the C5d instance type, you can physically connect the NVME-based SSD device to the host server to provide block-level storage for the entire instance lifetime.

ii. C6/ C6g instance

This family of compute-optimized instances is powered by the AWS Graviton2 series of processors and is suited for highly intensive and advanced applications such as high-performance computing, video encoding, ad serving, and distributed analytics. With the C6g instance type, you can get a 40% improvement in price-performance as compared to the C5 instance family.

3.????? Memory optimized Instance :

As the name suggests, memory-optimized instances are used for memory-intensive workloads that are required to process large datasets at a fast speed. Examples of memory-intensive applications include Big Data analytics or those running on Hadoop or Apache Spark.

EC2 Memory Optimized instances Types :

Here are the details of the different types of memory-optimized instances that you can choose from:

i. R5/ R5a/ R5n instance

The R5 series of instances are suited for workloads with high memory consumption such as high-performance databases, real-time Big data analytics,?and large in-memory cache applications. Among these, R5 and R5a are respectively powered by Intel and AMD processors – and also benefit from the AWS Nitro system?that provides easy access to the computing and memory resources of the server. As compared to the previous R4 type, R5 instances offer 5% more memory for each vCPU along with a 10% price improvement per GiB over R4.

ii. R6g/ R6gd instance

Powered by the AWS Graviton2 processor, R6 instances are suited for high memory workloads such as open-source databases (example, MySQL) and in-memory caching (example, Key DB). These instances use a custom-built AWS Graviton2 processor equipped with a 64-bit ARM Neoverse core. In the R6gd instance, the local NVME-based SSD drive is physically connected to the host server, thus enabling block-level storage.?

iii. X1/ X1e instance

Powered by the Intel Xeon processor, the X1 family of memory-optimized instances are designed to provide high computational memory for memory-intensive applications like SAP HANA, Apache Spark, and for high-performance computing. Among all EC2 instances, the X1e instance type provides the highest memory-to-compute ratio at the lowest price calculated for each GiB of RAM.

4.???? Accelerated Computing Instance :

Accelerated computing instance families use hardware accelerator or co-processors to perform some functions such as floating points number calculation, graphics processing or data pattern matching more efficiently than is possible in software running on CPUs.

EC2 Accelerated Computing instances Types :

Here are the details of the different types of accelerated computing instances that you can choose from:

i. P3 instance

The latest generation of GPU-based instances uses up to 8 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and is powered by a high-frequency Intel Xeon processor. This instance type supports NV Link for peer-based GPU communication and provides up to 100Gbps of network bandwidth.?

ii. P2 instance

Designed for general-purpose GPU compute applications, P2 instances are powered by the Intel Xeon processor and feature high-performance NVIDIA K80 GPUs. P2 instances provide capabilities like high-performance networking and double-precision floating-point calculations – thus making it ideal for deep learning applications and high-performance databases.

iii. Inf1 instance

Featuring 16 AWS Inferential machine learning chips that enable low latency and cost-effective performances, Inf1 instances are powered by Intel Xeon 2nd generation processors. API developers can also work with AWS Deep Learning APIs that are bundled with AWS Inferential.

iv. G3 instance

Designed with the NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPU, G3 instances provide high-performance and cost-effective solutions for graphic-intensive applications using DirectX or OpenGL. Some of the graphics-related tasks include graphic rendering and streaming. G3 instances are powered by high-frequency Intel Xeon processors and can enable the NVIDIA Grid Virtual Workstation functionality.

v. G4 instance

Powered by a 2nd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor, G4 instances are suited for accelerating machine learning inference and graphics-intensive workloads. Designed with the NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPU, this instance type also supports the NVIDIA Grid Virtual Workstation feature.

vi. F1 instance

F1 instances offer hardware acceleration using FPGAs. Powered with the high-frequency Intel Xeon processor, F1 instances feature NV Me SSD storage and support for enhanced networking. You can also use customized FPGA AMIs for quicker development and deployment of applications.

5.???? Storage optimized instance :

As the name suggests, storage-optimized instances are used for applications that have high storage requirements, particularly with sequential read-and-write applications like log processing. Storage-optimized instances are designed to deliver a high number of low latency and random I/O operations each second (or IOPS). Storage-optimized instances are also suitable for cloud-running applications that run high transaction and low latency workloads in use cases such as in-memory databases, data warehousing, and data analytics.

EC2 Storage Optimized instances Types:

Here are the details of the different types of storage-optimized instances that you can choose from:

i. D2 instance

Featuring 48TB of HDD storage, D2 instances is a storage-optimized instance with high-density storage with high sequential read/write for large datasets – including large Hadoop distributed environments. Along with high disk throughput, D2 instances are available for the lowest cost per disk throughput on Amazon EC2. These instances are designed for applications like MPP data warehousing, MapReduce and Hadoop computing, and log processing.

ii. H1 instance

As compared to D2 instances, H1 instances offer lesser density storage with a maximum of 16TB HDD. Powered by an Intel Xeon processor, H1 instances offer high disk throughput and enhanced networking of up to 25Gbps. These instances are most suitable for data-intensive applications like MapReduce, and for applications that require high throughput and sequential access to large data volumes.

iii. l3/ l3en instance

The l3 instance family offers SSD storage that has lower latency as compared to HDD-based instances. The l3 instance features an NV Me SSD storage that provides high IOPS at low costs thanks to its offering of low latency and high random I/O performance. This instance family is most suitable for high-frequency OLTP systems, relational databases, and caching for in-memory databases like Redis.

6.???? High memory optimized :

High memory optimized Instances are purpose built to run large-in-memory databases, including production developments of SAP HANA in the cloud.

?Features :

• Latest generation intel xeon Pentium 8176M processor.
• 6, 9, 12 TB of instance memory, the largest of any EC2 instance.
• Powered by the AWS nitro system, a combination of dedicated hardware and lightweight hypervisor.
• Base metal performance with direct access to host hardware.
• EBS optimized by default at no additional cost model no. -U-9tbl.metal and u-12tbl.metal.
• Network performance – 25 gbps, dedicated EBS bandwidth – 14 gbps
• Each instance offer 448 logical processor.

Instance storage:

• Physically attached to the host server.
• Data not lost when OS is rebooted.
• Data lost when:-
• Underlying drive fails
• Instance is stop or terminated.
• You can’t detached or attached to another instance.
• Do not rely on for valuable long term data.

Elastic Block Storage (EBS) :

EBS is a block type durable and persistent storage that can be attached to EC2-instances for additional storage. Unlike EC-2 instance storage volumes which are suitable for holding temporary data EBS volumes are highly suitable for essential and long term data. EBS volumes are specific to availability zones and can only be attached to instances within the same availability zone.?

EBS can be created from the EC2 dashboard in the console as well as in Step 4 of the EC2 launch. Just note that when creating EBS with EC2, the EBS volumes are created in the same availability zone as EC2, however when provisioned independently users can choose the AZ in which EBS is required.

Features of EBS :

Scalability :?EBS volume sizes and features can be scaled as per the needs of the system. This can be done in two ways:

• Take a snapshot of the volume and create a new volume using the Snapshot with new updated features.
• Updating the existing EBS volume from the console.

Backup :?Users can create?snapshots?of EBS volumes that act as backups.

• Snapshot can be created manually at any point in time or can be scheduled.
• Snapshots are stored on AWS S3 and are charged according to the S3 storage charges.
• Snapshots are incremental in nature.
• New volumes across regions can be created from snapshots.

Encryption :?Encryption can be a basic requirement when it comes to storage. This can be due to the government of regulatory compliance. EBS offers an?AWS managed encryption feature.

• Users can enable encryption when creating EBS volumes bu clicking on a checkbox.
• Encryption Keys are managed by the Key Management Service (KMS) provided by AWS.
• Encrypted volumes can only be attached to selected instance types.
• Encryption uses the AES-256 algorithm.
• Snapshots from encrypted volumes are encrypted and similarly, volumes created from snapshots are encrypted.

Charges :?Unlike AWS S3, where you are charged for the storage you consume, AWS charges users for the storage you hold. For example if you use 1 GB storage in a 5 GB volume, you’d still be charged for a 5 GB EBS volume.

• EBS charges vary from region to region.
• EBS Volumes are independent of the EC2 they are attached to. The data in an EBS volume will remain unchanged even if the instance is rebooted or terminated.
• EBS volumes are specific to availability zones and can only be attached to EC2 in the same availability zone. In case AWS’ availability zone is to go down, access to the EBS volume will be lost.
• Can be used for rapidly changing data that needs good I/Ops. As compared to EC-2 instance storage the control over data and flexibility offered by EBS is far greater.
• To provide durability, EBS volumes are replicated in their availability zone but are limited to one availability zone.

EBS Snapshots:

• Make a backup (snapshot) of your EBS volume at a point in time.
• Not necessary to detached volume to do snapshot but recommended.
• Can copy snapshot across AZ or region.

Types of EBS Volumes:

SSD :?This storage type is suitable for small chunks of data that requires fast I/Ops. SSDs can be used as root volumes for EC2 instances.

General Purpose SSD (GP2):

• Offers a single-digit millisecond latency.
• Can provide 3000 IOPS burst.
• IOPS speed is limited from 3-10000 IOPS.
• The throughput of these volumes is 128MBPS up to 170GB. After which throughput increases 768KBPS per GB and peaks at 160MBPS.

Provisioned IOPS SSD (IO1):

• These SSDs are IO intensive.
• Users can specify IOPS requirement during creation.
• Size limit is 4TB-16TB
• According to AWS claims “These volumes, if attached to EBS optimized instances will deliver IOPS defined within 10% 99.9% times of the year”
• Max IOPS speed is 20000.

HDD :?This storage type is suitable for Big Data chunks and slower processing. These volumes cannot be used as root volumes for EC2. AWS claims that “These volumes provide expected throughput 99.9% times of the year”

Cold HDD (SC1):

• SC1 is the cheapest of all EBS volume types. It is suitable for large, infrequently accessed data.
• Max Burst speed offered is 250 Mbps

Throughput optimized HDD (ST1):

• Suitable for large, frequently accessed data.
• Burst speed ranges from 250 MBPS to 500 MBPS.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you find this article helpful.

Happy Learning ??