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Revision as of 15:26, 31 August 2009
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (also known as "EC2") allows customers to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications. EC2 allows scalable deployment of applications by providing a web services interface through which a customer can create virtual machines, i.e. server instances, on which the customer can load any software of their choice. A customer can create, launch, and terminate server instances as needed, paying by the hour for active servers, hence the term "elastic". A customer can set up server instances in zones insulated from each other for most failure causes so that one may be a backup for the other and minimize down time. Amazon.com provides EC2 as one of several web services marketed under the blanket term Amazon Web Services (AWS).
History
- Amazon announced a limited public beta of EC2 on August 25, 2006. Access to EC2 was granted on a first come first served basis.
- Amazon added two new instance types (Large and Extra-Large) on October 16, 2007. On May 29, 2008, two more types were added, High-CPU Medium and High-CPU Extra Large. There are currently five types of instances available.
- Amazon added 3 new features on March 27, 2008. These features included Static IP Addresses, Availability Zones, and User Selectable Kernels.
- Amazon added Elastic Block Store (EBS) on August 20, 2008. This provides persistent storage, a basic feature which had been lacking since the service was introduced.
- Amazon EC2 is in full production since it dropped the beta label on October 23, 2008. On the same day, Amazon announced the following features:
- A Service Level Agreement for EC2.
- Microsoft Windows in beta form on EC2.
- Microsoft SQL Server in beta form on EC2.
- Plans for AWS management console.
- Plans for load balancing, auto scaling, and cloud monitoring services. These features were added on May 18, 2009.
Virtual machines
EC2 uses Xen virtualization. Each virtual machine, called an "instance", functions as a virtual private server in one of three sizes; small, large or extra large. Amazon.com sizes instances based on "EC2 Compute Units" — the equivalent CPU capacity of physical hardware. One EC2 Compute Unit equals 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor. The system offers the following instance types:
- Small Instance
- The small instance (default) equates to "a system with 1.7 GB of memory, 1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit), 160 GB of instance storage, 32-bit platform"
- Large Instance
- The large instance represents "a system with 7.5 GB of memory, 4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each), 850 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform".
- Extra Large Instance
- The extra large instance offers the "equivalent of a system with 15 GB of memory, 8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform."
- High-CPU Instance
- Instances of this family have proportionally more CPU resources than memory (RAM) and address compute-intensive applications.
- High-CPU Medium Instance
- Instances of this family have the following configuration:
- 1.7 GB of memory
- 5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
- 350 GB of instance storage
- 32-bit platform
- I/O Performance: Moderate
- High-CPU Extra Large Instance
- Instances of this family have the following configuration:
- 7 GB of memory
- 20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
- 1690 GB of instance storage
- 64-bit platform
- I/O Performance: High
Pricing
Amazon primarily charges customers in two ways:
- Hourly charge per virtual machine
- Data transfer charge
However there is additional charges for:
- Allocated and unused Elastic IP address
- Storage using Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
- Additional transfer charges using Elastic Load Balancing
- Using Amazon's CloudWatch service to monitor your virtual machine
- Using Amazon's Elastic Load Balancing which distributes load among selected virtual machine
- Note: You could also be charged for other Amazon Web Services used in conjunction with EC2, for example S3 charges for hosting a custom AMI
The hourly virtual machine rate is fixed, based on the capacity and features of the virtual machine. Amazon advertising describes the pricing scheme as "you pay for resources you consume," but defines resources such that an idle virtual machine is consuming resources, as opposed to other pricing schemes where one would pay for basic resources such as CPU time.
Customers can easily create/reboot virtual machines. Shutdown is not available but you can terminate your instance and create another one later, although in this case you will lose data. Unless backed up on Amazon S3, or on their network attached storage service EBS.
As of March 2009, Amazon's time charge is about $73/month for the smallest "On-Demand" virtual machine without Windows and twelve times that for the largest one running Windows. "Reserved" instances can go as low as $31/month for a three-year prepaid plan. The data transfer charge ranges from $0.10 to $0.17 per gigabyte, depending on the direction and monthly volume.
Amazon does not have monthly minimums or account maintenance charges.
Operating systems
When it launched in August 2006, the EC2 service offered Linux and later Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris and Solaris Express Community Edition. In October 2008, EC2 added the Windows Server 2003 operating system to the list of available operating systems.
Plans are in place for the Eucalyptus interface for the Amazon API to be packaged into the standard Ubuntu distribution.
Persistent Storage
Amazon.com provides persistent storage in the form of Elastic Block Storage (EBS). Users can set up and manage volumes of sizes from 1GB to 1TB. The servers can attach these instances of EBS to one server at a time in order to maintain data storage by the servers. Storage requirements can also be met by Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3).
Automated Scaling
Amazon's Auto Scaling feature of EC2 allow you to automatically scale your Amazon EC2 capacity, both up and down. If traffic to your site spikes, Amazon Auto Scaling can automatically add more capacity to maintain performance. However, if your site traffic is low, Amazon Auto Scaling can ensure you don't have too much capacity, wasting money and resources. Amazon's Auto Scaling is well suited for sites that experience unpredictable traffic. Even if your site has consistent usage, Auto Scaling can help prevent down time from heavy traffic, due to being in the news. You can control costs by setting the minimum and maximum number of servers to run.
- Features of Auto Scaling
- Auto Scaling enables you to set conditions for when you want to scale up or down your Amazon EC2 usage. When one of the conditions is met, Auto Scaling automatically applies the action you’ve defined.
- Auto Scaling enables your application to scale up Amazon EC2 instances seamlessly and automatically when demand spikes.
- Auto Scaling allows you to automatically shed unneeded Amazon EC2 instances and save money when demand subsides.
- Auto Scaling is free to Amazon CloudWatch customers.
- If you’re signed up for the Amazon EC2 service, you’re already registered to use Auto Scaling and can begin using the feature via the Auto Scaling APIs or Command Line Tools.
- Auto Scaling is available in the US Region and will be available in the EU Region soon.
Elastic IP Addresses
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Amazon CloudWatch
| This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (August 2009) |
Reserved Instances
| This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (August 2009) |
Abuse
In early July 2008 Outblaze and Spamhaus.org started to block Amazon's EC2 address-pool due to problems with the distribution of spam and malware.
References
- LaMonica, Martin (March 27, 2008). "Amazon Web Services adds 'resiliency' to EC2 compute service". CNet News. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- Barr, Jeff (August 25, 2006). "Amazon EC2 Beta". Amazon Web Services Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- Jinesh (October 16, 2007). "Amazon EC2 Gets More Muscle".
- Barr, Jeff (May 29, 2008). "More EC2 power". Amazon Web Services Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- Barr, Jeff (March 27, 2008). "New EC2 Features". Amazon Web Services Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- Barr, Jeff (August 20, 2008). "Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) - Bring Us Your Data". Amazon Web Services Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- ^ Barr, Jeff (August 23, 2008). "Big Day For EC2". Amazon Web Services Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- Barr, Jeff (May 18, 2009). "New Features for EC2". Amazon Web Services Blog. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- "Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)". Amazon.com. July 31, 2009. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
- http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#pricing
- Shankland, Stephen (October 23, 2008). "Amazon's Linux cloud computing out of beta, joined by Windows". CNet News. Retrieved October 24, 2008.
- "Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Running Microsoft Windows Server and SQL Server". Amazon.com. October 23, 2008. Retrieved October 25, 2008.
- Krebs, Brian (July 1, 2008). "Amazon: Hey Spammers, Get Off My Cloud!". Washington Post. Retrieved August 1, 2009.
See also
- Amazon Virtual Private Cloud
- Cloud computing
- Cloud infrastructure
- ElasticHosts
- FlexiScale
- GoGrid
- Rackspace Cloud
- RightScale
External links
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud main page
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