What Is Amazon EC2? Complete Beginner’s Guide with AWS Educate

Learning Amazon EC2 with AWS Educate: A Complete Beginner’s Journey

After diving into AWS storage services yesterday, today I focused on one of the core compute services in the AWS ecosystem: Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). Through the AWS Educate platform, I explored how EC2 works, when and why to use it, and how to configure and launch instances effectively.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the key sections of the course, including architecture, launch steps, instance options, scaling, and cost management. This isn’t a technical manual—it’s a beginner-friendly recap from a learner’s point of view.

Understanding Cloud Computing with AWS

The course starts by breaking down what computing means in the cloud era. Compared to traditional infrastructure, cloud computing offers:

On-demand scalability
Pay-as-you-go pricing
Flexibility to deploy globally

We also explored different computing models like virtual machines (e.g., EC2), containers (ECS, EKS), and serverless (Lambda).

Introduction to Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 provides resizable virtual servers in the cloud. You choose the type of instance (virtual hardware), the operating system, the storage, and the network settings. EC2 is useful for workloads such as:

Web hosting
Application backends
Development/testing environments
High-performance computing (HPC)

We covered what EC2 is, what problems it solves (e.g., physical infrastructure limitations), and its major benefits: flexibility, cost control, and rapid provisioning.

EC2 Architecture Components

Understanding how EC2 instances are structured is key:

Instance Type: Determines CPU, RAM, and network performance
Amazon Machine Image (AMI): Defines the OS and software setup
VPC & Subnet: Define the networking environment
Security Group: Acts as a virtual firewall
Key Pair: Secures SSH access
EBS Volume: Provides persistent block storage

All these components work together to define and isolate your cloud resources.

Launching an EC2 Instance – Step by Step

The course walked through the full launch process:

Choose an AMI – e.g., Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, or Windows
Select Instance Type – t2.micro for beginners, m5 for production
Configure Network & Storage – Choose subnet, IP settings, EBS
Create or Use Key Pair – For secure access via SSH
Set Security Groups – Define which traffic is allowed
Add Tags – Organize and identify resources
Review & Launch

Every step was supported with interactive simulations.

Understanding Instance Options

AWS offers flexible purchasing models:

On-Demand Instances: Pay per hour/second, no commitment
Reserved Instances (RI): Commit 1–3 years, save up to 75%
Savings Plans: Commit to usage (not instance), flexible
Spot Instances: Use unused capacity at up to 90% discount

Use Auto Scaling to launch/terminate instances based on demand, and choose the right model based on cost sensitivity and workload flexibility.

Vertical & Horizontal Scaling

Two types of scaling were covered:

Vertical Scaling: Upgrading to a bigger instance type
Horizontal Scaling: Adding/removing instances dynamically (via Auto Scaling)

We compared these strategies, and I practiced configuring Auto Scaling groups with different scenarios.

Security and Access Control

Security groups and IAM roles were introduced in detail. Key takeaways:

Security groups control traffic rules per instance
IAM roles control service permissions without hardcoding credentials
Instances can be launched with predefined roles for secure automation

Cost Optimization

I learned about EC2 pricing components:

Instance runtime
Storage (EBS)
Data transfer
Additional services (e.g., Elastic IP, load balancers)

To optimize cost, AWS recommends using tagging, right-sizing instances, and combining pricing models (e.g., RI + Spot).

Beyond EC2: Integration with AWS Services

We briefly explored how EC2 works with other AWS tools:

ELB (Elastic Load Balancing) for traffic distribution
Amazon S3 / EBS / EFS for storage integration
Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and metrics

This EC2 course through AWS Educate was a great hands-on journey. I not only understood the technical components of launching and scaling instances, but also practiced with real configurations in simulations.

It’s perfect for any beginner looking to build a solid foundation in cloud computing with AWS.

If you’re just starting your AWS journey, I highly recommend combining this EC2 course with the storage course I shared yesterday. Together, they form a great beginner-friendly path toward becoming cloud-fluent.