Summary and Quiz

In this lesson, we’ll summarize what we’ve learned in this chapter and test our knowledge of the AWS compute services with a short quiz.

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Here’s a summary of the key takeaways from this chapter:

EC2 core concepts

EC2 provides resizable computing capacity in the cloud. It allows users to run virtual servers, known as instances, for various computing tasks. 

• EC2 allows running virtual servers, known as instances, of different types based on the requirements.

• Each instance can be pre-configured using an AMI template of software configurations.

• Security group rules control inbound and outbound traffic to the resource. These rules allow traffic filtering based on protocols, port numbers, and IP addresses.

  • Inbound rules are used to define incoming traffic to the associated resources.

  • Outbound rules define the outgoing traffic from the associated resource to the internet.

• An Elastic Network Interface (ENI), also known as a Network Interface, is a virtual network card that can be attached to the EC2 instances.  

Placement groups

EC2 offers different placement groups to cater to various application needs related to performance, availability, and fault tolerance.

• The cluster placement group is a logical grouping of interrelated instances to achieve the best throughput and low latency rate possible within an Availability Zone.

• Partition placement group helps us further logically divide the placement group into partitions, and each partition has its own rack.

• Spread placement group is the placement of instances such that each instance has its rack.

Purchase options

EC2 offers different purchase options, such as On-demand, Reserved, Savings, and many more.

• On-Demand purchase option that works on the pay-per-second model. An instance is launched as per the requirements with no future commitments. 

• An EC2 Capacity Reservation reserves EC2 instances in a specific availability zone. It allows to reserve instances without any commitment; thus, it does not offer any discounts on the bill.

• Reserved instance reduces the cost of EC2 by committing to consistent usage of a specified instance, including instance type and region. 

• Spot instances are unused EC2 compute capacity that can significantly reduce the cost. Amazon provides spot instances for users to bid on the unused compute capacity available for less than the On-Demand price. 

• Saving plans provide low prices for EC2 instances in exchange for a long-term commitment. It can offer up to 72 percent off On-Demand in exchange for a commitment to a specific instance family in a chosen AWS region.

• A dedicated host is a physical server that is dedicated to the user. It allows the user to control the server extensively, including sockets, VM software licenses, Windows Server, and SQL Server.

Storage options

AWS offers flexible and easy-to-use data storage options for EC2 instances to meet all the requirements. 

• Elastic Block Store (EBS) is a highly reliable, durable block-level storage volume that can be attached to the EC2 instances.

• An instance store is a temporary block storage for an instance physically attached to the host. Instance storage is also known as ephemeral storage. It is the fastest storage block available for EC2 since it is physically attached to the host. 

• An AWS S3 bucket is a scalable and durable object storage service that allows users to store and retrieve data from the internet.

• The Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is a user-friendly and scalable file storage solution that dynamically adapts storage limits without impacting applications. 

User data

User data is crucial for EC2 instances to enable automated, customized, and consistent configuration. It facilitates infrastructure as code practices, supports dynamic configuration, optimizes costs, and integrates with other AWS services. These capabilities are essential for managing and scaling infrastructure effectively in cloud environments.

Now, let’s take a quiz to test our knowledge of Elastic Compute Cloud.

Test your knowledge

Let’s take a quiz to make sure we’ve not missed out on anything: