AWS EC2 Instance Types Explained | Towards Data Science

AWS offers different types of EC2 instance types which are optimised to fit several different use cases. Each instance type provides a ... GetstartedOpeninappSigninGetstartedFollow608KFollowers·Editors'PicksFeaturesDeepDivesGrowContributeAboutGetstartedOpeninappAWSEC2InstanceTypesExplainedUnderstandingthedifferenttypesofEC2instancesonAmazonWebServicesGiorgosMyrianthousNov15·3minreadPhotobyMarcusDallColonUnsplashIntroductionAmazonElasticComputeCloud(EC2)isawebserviceofferingcloudcomputecapacityandisamongthemostpopularofferingsinAmazonWebServices.Theserviceletsusersrentvirtualmachines,storedataonvirtualdrives,distributeloadacrossdifferentmachinesandscaleservices.AWSoffersdifferenttypesofEC2instancetypeswhichareoptimisedtofitseveraldifferentusecases.Eachinstancetypeprovidesadifferentcombinationofmemory,CPU,storageandnetworkingthatcanbeusedindifferentcontextsinordertosuitthespecificusecase.Intoday’sarticlewewilldiscussthefourmostbasicEC2instancetypes,namelyGeneralPurpose,ComputeOptimised,MemoryOptimisedandStorageOptimised.Additionally,wewillgiveafewexampleuse-casesforwhicheachinstancetypeismostsuitablefor.GeneralPurposeGeneralpurposeinstancesofferabalanceofcompute,memoryandnetworkingresourceandaremostlysuitableforavarietyofdiverseworkloadssuchascoderepositoriesorwebservers.ComputeOptimizedComputeoptimisedinstancesareusedforcompute-intensivetasksthatrequirefromhigh-performanceprocessingpower.Afewuse-casesthatcouldpossiblybenefitfromcomputeoptimisedinstancesinncludeScientificmodeling&MachineLearningworkflowsHighPerformanceComputing(HPC)BatchprocessingworkloadsHighperformancewebserversMemoryOptimizedMemoryoptimisedinstancesaresuitableforworkloadsthatrequirefastperformanceinordertoprocesslargedatasetsinmemory.Someuse-casesthatwouldbenefitfrommemoryoptimisedinstancesinclude:Relationalandnon-relationaldatabasesIn-memorydatabasesTasksperformingreal-timeprocessingoverbigamountsofdataStorageOptimizedFinally,storageoptimisedinstancesaredesignedforstorage-intensivetasksthatrequirehighsequentialreadandwriteaccesstolargedatasetsonlocalstorage.Theseinstancesareoptimisedtodeliverlow-latencyoperationstoapplicationsrunningoverthem.AfewusecasesthatwouldbenefitfromstorageoptimisedinstancesareRelationalandNoSQLdatabasesDataWarehousingapplicationsDistributedFileSystemsCacheforin-memorydatabasesFinalThoughtsIntoday’sarticlewediscussedaboutthedifferentEC2instancetypesofferedinAmazonWebServices.FormoredetailsaboutthespecificinstancesyoucanrefertoAWSproduct’srelevantsection.EC2hasawiderangeofdifferentEC2instancesandsometimesitmaybetimeconsumingwhenitcomestocomparingmanyofthemonAmazon’swebsite.ThefollowingwebsiteprovidesaveryintuitivewayforcomparingEC2instancemetricsandpricingsomakesuretocheckitout.AmazonEC2InstanceComparisonNameAPINameMemoryComputeUnits(ECU)GiBofMemorypervCPUGPUsGPUmodelGPUmemoryCUDAComputeCapabilityFPGAs…ec2instances.infoBecomeamemberandreadeverystoryonMedium.Yourmembershipfeedirectlysupportsmeandotherwritersyouread.You’llalsogetfullaccesstoeverystoryonMedium.JoinMediumwithmyreferrallink—GiorgosMyrianthousAsaMediummember,aportionofyourmembershipfeegoestowritersyouread,andyougetfullaccesstoeverystory…gmyrianthous.medium.comYoumayalsolikeTypesofCloudComputingUnderstandingcloudcomputingtypesandthedifferencebetweenIaaS,PaaSandSaaStowardsdatascience.comDeploymentModelsinCloudComputingUnderstandingthedifferencebetweenprivate,publicandhybridcloudtowardsdatascience.comGiorgosMyrianthousMachineLearningEngineer|PythonDeveloper|https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gmyrianthousFollow55 5ProgrammingSoftwareDevelopmentCloudComputingTechnologyAmazonWebServicesMorefromTowardsDataScienceFollowYourhomefordatascience.AMediumpublicationsharingconcepts,ideasandcodes.ReadmorefromTowardsDataScienceMoreFromMediumPredictingPropertyintheBigAppleNikhilJosephStartingoffinBioinformatics—DNANucleotidesandStrandsVijiniMallawaarachchiinTowardsDataScienceRegressioninthecontextofFASTAILESSON6AssacLaplaceMyJourneyatKaggle’s30DaysofMLChallengeVamsiVuyyurudroidconNYCCFPInsightsdroidconNYCHowthethreetypesofdataanalyticscanimproveyourbusinessLindsaySouersinAptusBlogAnimateDynamicGraphswithGephiHaayaNaushaninTowardsDataScienceBuildingaSankeyplotinPythontovisualiseadatasetwhereanentityhasmultiplerepeating…VidyaViswanathan