EC2 Auto Recovery automatically recovers an instance when an underlying hardware failure is detected, migrating it to healthy hardware while keeping its instance ID, IP addresses, and metadata.
Recovery vs Auto Scaling replacement
Auto Recovery recovers the same instance (same ID and IPs) after a system-status-check failure — good for single stateful instances. Auto Scaling replaces an unhealthy instance with a new one. When a scenario needs the same instance identity restored after hardware failure, that’s Auto Recovery (via a CloudWatch alarm on system status checks).
Test yourself
A single stateful EC2 instance must be automatically recovered with the same IP and instance ID if its underlying hardware fails. What do you configure?
- An Auto Scaling group
- EC2 Auto Recovery via a CloudWatch status-check alarm
- A second Elastic IP
- A NAT gateway
👉 Click to reveal the answer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Auto Recovery migrates the instance to healthy hardware, preserving its ID and IPs, triggered by a CloudWatch system-status alarm. An Auto Scaling group (A) replaces with a new instance (new ID); an extra EIP (C) and NAT (D) don’t recover the instance.
Related topics
Amazon EC2 · Amazon CloudWatch · Auto Scaling
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