What is the key difference between an On-Demand instance and a Reserved instance?
On-Demand instances offer pay-as-you-go flexibility with no long-term commitment, while Reserved Instances (RIs) provide significant discounts in exchange for a 1- or 3-year commitment.
What is the key difference between EBS snapshots and AMIs?
EBS snapshots are backups of individual EBS volumes, while AMIs are used to launch EC2 instances and include a root volume plus metadata (e.g., launch permissions, block device mappings).
Vertical scaling is also known as?
It means increasing the capacity of a single server or instance.
Example: Upgrading an EC2 instance from t3.medium to m5.2xlarge (more CPU, RAM).
Does not add more instances, just makes the current one more powerful.
Which EC2 pricing model is best suited for workloads with predictable, steady-state usage?
They offer significant discounts (up to 75%) over On-Demand pricing.
Ideal for long-term, consistent usage (1 or 3-year terms).
You can choose:
Standard RIs – for maximum savings (less flexibility).
Convertible RIs – for some flexibility in instance attributes.
What is the primary difference between Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances?
Physical server visibility
Placement control
Licensing (BYOL)