AWS EC2 stands for Elastic Compute Cloud and is the most popular Infrastructure as a Service offering by Amazon.  Knowledge of EC2 components and works is fundamental to working in the AWS Cloud.  

Capabilities of AWS EC2

 -Virtual Machine offering (EC2)

 -Virtual data storage Drives (EBS)

 -Distribution of Load or Load Balancing across EC2 Instance (ELB

 -Scaling service via auto-scaling groups (ASG)

EC2 Instance sizing and configuration options must be considered like a normal Data Center Server.  AWS provides standard EC2 sizing for any solution or organizational needs and you can build your own configuration.

 –  OS: Linux, Windows or Mac OS

 –  Number of Computer Cores per Instance (CPU)

 –  Amount of memory per Instance

 –  Storage and Type

  – Network-attached (EBS or EFS)

  – Hardware-attached (Per EC2 Instance)

 –  Number network cards and speeds

                – Public IP address

                – Private IP address

 –  Firewall Rules: security group

 –  Bootstrap script (Configure EC2 Instance): EC2 User Data

EC2 User Data is the startup instructions of your EC2 Instance and can contain:

 –  Installing updates

 –  Installing software

 –  Downloading files, data or update.

 –  Any other organizational processes necessary at startup.