1 reviews

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

The Pros:Turns up-front fixed server costs into lesser variable costs. Pay-only for what you use. Deploy servers using software - save tons of time.

The Cons:Can be more expensive on the small scale. A learning curve to grasping the cloud computing concept. Only two 32-bit server options - high-CPU not that powerful.

The Amazon Compute Cloud, aka "EC2", is a server virtualization web service offered by Amazon in which users can create virtual server instances that exist on Amazon's computing infrastructure.

Initially, launched as a beta service with support only for Linux-based server instances, EC2 has expanded to Windows Server 2003 support in mid-October 2008. Clients rent "Compute Units" on an hourly basis, and pay only for how long there server instances are turned on.

Pricing

Small: 1 CPU, 1 Core 1.7 GB RAM, windows: $0.125/hr, linux: $0.100/hr
Large: 4 CPU, 2 Cores, 7.5 GB RAM windows: $0.50/hr, linux $0.40/hr
X-Large: 8 CPU, 4 Cores, 15 GB RAM windows: $1.00/hr, linux $0.80/hr
Medium (high CPU): 5 CPU, 2 Cores, 1.7 GB RAM windows: $0.30/hr, linux $0.20/hr
Large (high CPU): 20 CPU, 8 Cores, 7 GB RAM windows: $1.20/hr, linux $0.80/hr

User Reviews (1)

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Pros

1

Turns up-front fixed server costs into lesser variable costs
1

Pay-only for what you use
1

Deploy servers using software - save tons of time
1

Add more servers in the event of a one-off traffic spike to handle the load
1

Now runs Windows 2K3
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Elastic IP adresses can be programatically assigned to any server instance
1

Excellent redundancy and failover protection
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Web-based management console + Firefox add-on for server management
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Elastic Block Storage (EBS) off-instance storage volumes persist independently from the life of an instance
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Backups of hardware configurations using Amazon Machine Images (AMI)