EC2 is just servers you rent by the second. You pick the CPU and memory, pick an operating-system image, hit go, and you’ve got a machine. Need ten more? Spin them up. Done? Shut them off and stop paying. That flexibility is the whole pitch, and it’s why EC2 is all over these exams.
Pricing is where the points are
On-Demand — full price, no commitment. Reserved / Savings Plans — commit one to three years, save up to ~72%, for steady workloads. Spot — up to ~90% off but AWS can reclaim it with two minutes’ notice, ideal for interruptible work. Dedicated Hosts — physical isolation for licensing or compliance.
Test yourself
A background image-processing job restarts fine if it’s interrupted, and you want the lowest possible cost. Which EC2 purchasing option is best?
- On-Demand Instances
- Reserved Instances
- Spot Instances
- Dedicated Hosts
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: C. Spot Instances are cheapest (up to ~90% off) and perfect for fault-tolerant, interruptible work. Reserved suits steady long-term use; On-Demand is flexible but pricier; Dedicated Hosts are about compliance, not cost.
Related topics
Auto Scaling · Elastic Load Balancing · AWS Lambda
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