Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a central part of Amazon.com's cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS). EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications. EC2 is a fundamental component in the world of DevOps, a software development and IT operations methodology that aims to deliver software products faster and more efficiently.
DevOps, a portmanteau of "development" and "operations," is a practice that aims to unify software development (Dev) and software operation (Ops). The main characteristic of the DevOps movement is to strongly advocate automation and monitoring at all steps of software construction, from integration, testing, releasing to deployment and infrastructure management. DevOps aims at shorter development cycles, increased deployment frequency, more dependable releases, in close alignment with business objectives.
Definition of EC2 in DevOps
EC2, in the context of DevOps, is a service that provides scalable computing capacity in the AWS cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers. It eliminates the need to invest in hardware up front, so applications can be developed and deployed faster. You can use Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few virtual servers as needed, configure security and networking, and manage storage.
EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate them from common failure scenarios. It is integrated with most AWS services such as S3, RDS, and VPC to provide a complete, secure solution for computing, query processing, and cloud storage across a wide range of applications.
EC2 Instances
Instances are virtual servers that can run applications. They are the fundamental unit on which AWS EC2 operates. There are various types of instances that you can use to meet the needs of your application. Each type offers different compute, memory, and storage capabilities and are grouped in instance families optimized for different types of applications.
Your instances are completely controlled by you. You have root access to each one, and you can interact with them as you would any machine. You can stop your instances while retaining the data on your boot partition and then subsequently restart the same instance using web service APIs. Instances can be rebooted remotely using web service APIs, and you also have access to their console output.
EC2 Pricing
Amazon EC2 provides a variety of instance types optimized to fit different use cases. Instance types comprise varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity and give you the flexibility to choose the appropriate mix of resources for your applications. Each instance type includes one or more instance sizes, allowing you to scale your resources to the requirements of your target workload.
EC2 pricing is based on the instance types and the region in which your instances are running. There is also a free tier available, offering free usage of a small instance on EC2, plus a number of other AWS services.
History of EC2
Amazon EC2 was announced publicly on August 25, 2006. It was the first commercially available service of its type, allowing users to use cloud resources on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. The service was designed to abstract the infrastructure and make it available as a service, so that users could have the resources they needed without the upfront cost and complexity of owning and managing their own physical servers.
Since its launch, EC2 has grown rapidly in popularity and has been adopted by businesses of all sizes globally. It has also evolved significantly over time, with Amazon regularly adding new features and instance types to meet the needs of its users. Today, EC2 is a fundamental part of the AWS offering and is used by millions of customers worldwide.
Significant Milestones
The first major milestone for EC2 was its launch in 2006. This was followed by the introduction of Reserved Instances in 2009, which allowed users to reserve capacity for their applications. In 2010, Spot Instances were introduced, allowing users to bid on spare Amazon EC2 computing capacity. In 2012, Amazon added support for Microsoft Windows Server.
In 2014, Amazon introduced its first GPU instance type, which was followed by the launch of many more instance types over the following years, including those optimized for compute, memory, storage, and more. In 2017, Amazon added support for bare metal instances. In 2018, AWS announced the Elastic Inference, which allows users to attach low-cost GPU-powered inference acceleration to Amazon EC2 instances.
Use Cases of EC2 in DevOps
EC2 is used in a wide range of applications, but it's particularly well-suited to scenarios where flexible compute, memory, and storage are needed. It's used by businesses of all sizes for a wide variety of tasks, from hosting websites and web applications, to running large scale data processing and analytics jobs, to supporting enterprise-class applications.
EC2 is particularly popular in DevOps due to its integration with other AWS services, its flexibility, and its scalability. It allows developers to quickly spin up resources to create and test applications, and it provides the infrastructure needed to support continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.
Hosting Web Applications
EC2 is commonly used to host web applications. This includes everything from simple static websites to complex dynamic web applications. EC2's scalability makes it a good fit for applications that need to scale up and down rapidly, such as those that experience variable traffic patterns.
EC2 instances can be used to host the application code, and other AWS services can be used to support the application. For example, Amazon RDS can be used to manage the database layer, Amazon S3 can be used to store static content, and Amazon CloudFront can be used to distribute content to users around the world.
Running Large Scale Data Processing Jobs
EC2 is also commonly used to run large scale data processing jobs. These can be batch jobs that run at specific times, or continuous processing jobs that run all the time. EC2's flexibility and scalability make it a good fit for these types of workloads.
For example, a company might use EC2 to run a large scale data processing job that analyzes customer behavior data to identify trends and patterns. The job could be run on a regular basis, with the results being used to inform business decisions.
Examples of EC2 in DevOps
There are many examples of companies using EC2 in a DevOps context. These examples highlight the flexibility and scalability of EC2, and how it can be used to support a wide range of use cases.
For instance, Netflix, a major user of AWS services, uses EC2 to host its streaming service. This service needs to be highly available and scalable to support the millions of users who stream movies and TV shows from Netflix every day. EC2 provides the compute resources needed to support this service, and other AWS services are used to support other aspects of the service, such as storage and content delivery.
Dropbox
Dropbox, a popular file hosting service, uses EC2 to support its service. Dropbox needs to be able to quickly scale its resources up and down to match demand, and EC2 provides this flexibility. Dropbox uses a range of other AWS services in conjunction with EC2 to support its service, including Amazon S3 for storage and Amazon RDS for its database layer.
Dropbox also uses EC2 to support its DevOps practices. For example, it uses EC2 instances to run its continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. These pipelines automate the process of testing and deploying new code, helping to increase the speed and reliability of software releases.
Lyft
Lyft, a popular ride-sharing service, uses EC2 to support its mobile app. The app needs to be highly available and scalable to support the millions of users who use Lyft to request rides every day. EC2 provides the compute resources needed to support this service, and other AWS services are used to support other aspects of the service, such as storage and content delivery.
Lyft also uses EC2 to support its DevOps practices. For example, it uses EC2 instances to run its continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. These pipelines automate the process of testing and deploying new code, helping to increase the speed and reliability of software releases.