What is an EC2?

EC2 refers to Elastic Compute Cloud which is a virtual computing service offered by amazon web services (AWS). EC2s behave exactly like our normal computers except that they are cloud based and they could be accessed from anywhere.

Like any computer, EC2s come with specs, RAM size, storage size, processor type, speed etc. There are different type of EC2 instances that AWS provides, and you can chose base on your needs. AWS provides the following instance type:

• General Purpose

• Compute Optimised

• Storage Optimised

• Memory Optimised

• Accelerated Computing

With each instance type having its purpose.

CREATING AN EC2 INSTANCE

• On your AWS management console search for EC2 and open it.

• Scroll down and select Launch instance

• Give your instance a name under Name and tag

• Scroll down and select your Operating system type. In this demo I will use ubuntu OS.

• Select your Amazon Machine Image.

• Next Select your instance type. (Instance type is basically the power/capabilities of the OS you chose).

• Proceed to Key pair(login) section and create a key pair or select an existing one. (Key pair is used to SSH into your instance).

• In the Network section leave everything as the default if you are a beginner.

• Next Configure your storage. The default storage is 8 gigabytes of hard drive or SSD storage, but you can increase it.

• Leave the Advance details section default if you are a beginner, and on your far right select Launch instance .

• After successfully creating the instance select the instance ID to open the instance page (i-05198ea30958b6b98).

• Check the box next to the instance's name and select connect at the the top of the page.

• Under the Ec2 instance connect tab, scroll down and select connect

  

• Wait for some time for it to load, there you have it, an Amazon EC2 computer.