EC2: Elastic Compute Cloud

Question 1

What does EC2 stand for?

Answer 1

Elastic Compute Cloud

Question 2

What are the 6 basic computer components?

Answer 2

1. Operating System - Linux or Windows
2. CPU - Processing Power “the brain”
3. Hard Drive - Local Storage
4. Network Card - Access to the internet (eithernet or wifi based)
5. Firewall - Security
6. RAM - Short-term memory. Before data is processed, goes into memory, then to CPU to process.

Question 3

What is EC2?

Answer 3

Simplified Definition:
Think of EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) as a basic computer.

AWS Defintion:
EC2 provides scalable computing capacity in the AWS cloud. Using Amazon EC2 elimiates your need to invest in hardware up front, so you can develop and deploy applications faster. You can use Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few virtual servers as you need, configure security and networking, and manage storage. EC2 enables you to scale up or down to handle changes in requirements or spike in popularity, reducing your need to forecast traffic.

Question 4

What are the 6 basic EC2 components?

Answer 4

1. AMI (Amazon Machine Image) - Operating System, such as Linux or Windows.
2. Instance Type - CPU, or processing power
3. EBS - Hard drive or local storage.
4. IP Address - Network Adaptor or Internet Access
5. Security Groups - Firewall
6. RAM - Short-term memory

Question 5

What are the three most common EC2 Instance purchasing options?

Answer 5

1. On Demand
2. Reserved
3. Spot

Question 6

What is On Demand purchasing?

Answer 6

On demand purchasing allows you to choose any instance type you like and provision/terminate it at any time on demand.

1. This is the most expensive and most flexible purchasing option.
2. You are only charged when the instance is running (and billed by the hour or the second depending on which instances you run).
3. You can provision/terminate an on demand instance at any time.

Good for spikes or unpredictable workloads or apllications being developed or tested on EC2 for the first time.

Question 7

What is Reserved purchasing?

Answer 7

Reserved purchasing allows you to purchase an instance for a set time period of 1-3 years. up to 75% off of on demand pricing.

1. This allows for a significant price discount over using on demand.
2. You can select to pay upfont, partial upfront, or no upfront.
3. Once you buy a reserved instance, you own it for the selected time period and are responsible for the entire prices - regardless of how often you use it.

Question 8

What is Spot purchasing?

Answer 8

Spot pricing is a way for you to request spare EC2 computing capacity for up to 90% off the On-Demand price.

Recommended for:

• Applications that have flexible start and end times
• Applications that are only feasible at a very low compute price
• Users with urgent computing needs for large amounts of additional capacity.

Question 9

How are you charged for Compute Services (6 components)?

Answer 9

1. Purchasing Options - On demand, Reserved, Spot
2. Instance Type - Instance’s processing capacity (think CPU).
   - General purpose
   - Compute optimized
   - Accelerated computing
   - Meomory optimized
   - Storage optimized
3. EBS Optimized: An option for higher IOPS performance. ( how fast storage will perform/process data)
4. AMI Type - Operating Sytem (Linux vs Windows)
5. Data Transfer - in/out of the instance (how much)
6. Region - region in which the instance is provisioned.

Question 10

8 benefits of using EC2?

Answer 10

1. Elastic web-scale computing
2. Full root control of the server
3. Flexicble options (many instance types, AMIs to choose from)
4. Flexible options (many instance types, AMIs to choose from)
5. Integrates with almost all other AWS services
6. Extremely reliable
7. High level of built-in security
8. Very easy to start (create an EC2 instance witing minutes).

Question 11

5 primary use cases of EC2?

Answer 11

1. Multi-tier web applications
2. Web servers
3. Batch processing
4. Video processing
5. GPU intensive workloads

Question 12

What does AMI stand for?

Answer 12

Amazon Machine Image

Question 13

What is the definition of AMI?

Answer 13

Amazon Machine Image

Simplified Definition:
A preconfigured package required to launch an EC2 instance that includes an operating sytem, software packages, and other required settings.

AWS Definition:
An AMI provides the information required to launch an instance, which is a virtual server in the cloud. You specify an AMI when you launch an instance, and you can launch as many instances from the AMI as you need. You can also launch instances from as many different AMIs as you need.

Question 14

What are the three main categories of AMIs?

Answer 14

1. Community AMIs
2. AWS Marketplace AMIs
3. My AMIs

Question 15

What are Community AMIs?

Answer 15

• Free to use

- Generally with these AMIs, you just select the OS you want.

Question 16

What are AWS Marketplace AMIs?

Answer 16

• Pay to use

- generally come packaged with additional, licenses software.

Question 17

What are My AMIs?

Answer 17

• Customized AMIs you create yourself.

Question 18

What are the 5 instance types?

Answer 18

1. General Purpose
2. Compute Optimized
3. GPU Optimized
4. Memory Optimized
5. Storage Optimized

Question 19

What are the three components of an AMI?

Answer 19

1. Root volume template
   - Operating System (ex. Linux)
   - Application Software (ex. Apache web server)
2. Launch Permissions
3. Block Device Mapping
   - EBS (hard drive mapping) (ex. EBS mapping to volume)

Question 20

What is the definition of an Instance Type?

Answer 20

Simplified Definition: 
The CPU (central processing unit) of your instance. 

AWS Definition:
When you launch an instance, the instance type that you specify determines the hardware of the host computer used for your instance. Each instance type offers different computer, memory, and storage capabilities and are grouped in instance families based on these capabilities. Select an instance type based on the reqirements of the application or software that you plan to run on your instance.

Question 21

What are the 7 Instance Type Components?

Answer 21

• Family: A way of categorizing instance types based on what they are optimized to do.
• Type: Subcategory for each family type.
• vCPUs: The number of virtual CPUs the instance type uses.
• Memory (GiB): the amount of RAM the instance type uses.
• Instance storage (GB): The local instance storage volume (your hard drive).
• EBS-optimaized available: Indicates if EBS-optimized is an option for the instance type.
• Network performance: Network performance rating based on its data transfer rate (bandwidth capability).

Question 22

What does EBS stand for?

Answer 22

Elastic Block Storage

Question 23

What is the definition of EBS?

Answer 23

Elastic Block Storage

Simplified Definition:
EBS is a storage volume for an EC2 instance. This of it as the hard drive.

AWS Definition:
EBS provides block-level storage volumes for use with EC2 instances. EBS volumes are highly available and reliable storage volumes that can be attached to any running instance that is in the same Availability Zone. EBS volues that are attached to an EC2 isntance are exposed as storage volumes that persiste independently form the life of the instance.

Question 24

True or False: EBS volumes can be attached in any Availability Zone within your VPC?

Answer 24

False: EBS volumes can be attached to any running instance that is in the SAME Availability Zone.

Question 25

True or False: Every EC2 instance MUST have a root volume, which may or many not be EBS.

Answer 25

True.

Question 26

True or False: By default, EBS root volumes are set to be deleted when the instance is terminated.

Answer 26

True. However, you can choose to have EBS volumes persist after termination.

Question 27

True or False: During or after the creation of an EC2 instance, you can add additional EBS volumes to the instance?

Answer 27

True.

Question 28

True or False: Any additional volume can be attached or detached from the instance at any time, and is deleted when the instance is terminated?

Answer 28

False. Any additional volume can be attached or detached from the instance at any time, and is NOT deleted (the default) when the instance is terminated?

Question 29

What is the definition of a Security Group?

Answer 29

Simplified Definition: Security groups are very similar to NACLs, in that they allow or deny traffic. However, security groups are found on the instance level (as opposed to the subnet level). In addition, the way allow/deny rules work are different from NACLs. AWS Definition: A security group acts as a virtual firewall that controls the traffic for one or more instances. When you launch an instance, you associate one or more security groups with the instance. You add rules to each security group that allow traffic to or from its associated instances. You can modify the rules for a security group at any time; the new rules are automatically applied to all instances that are associated with the security group. When we decide whether to allow traffic to reach an instance, we evaluate all the rules ffrom all the security groups that are associated with the instance.

Question 30

What are the default traffic settings of a Security Group?

Answer 30

All inbound traffic is denied and all outbound traffic is allowed by default.

Question 31

What are the Inbound and Outbound Rules for Security Groups?

Answer 31

1. All inbound traffic is denied unless there is an explicit ALLOW rule for it. 2. There are no DENY rules - only ALLOW rules.

Question 32

True or False: Remote Desktop is used to connect to a Windows EC2 instance?

Answer 32

True.