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What is Amazon EC2 and what does it provide to users needing virtual compute capacity?

Beginner

Answer

Amazon EC2, or Elastic Compute Cloud, provides resizable virtual servers, called instances, in the cloud, letting you choose the operating system, amount of CPU and memory, storage, and networking configuration you need, and scale that capacity up or down as your requirements change, without needing to purchase, install, or maintain any physical hardware yourself.
aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-12345678 --instance-type t3.medium --key-name my-key
Real-world example A startup launches a handful of EC2 instances to host its web application, scaling up the number and size of instances as its user base grows, without ever needing to purchase or manage physical servers.

Common follow-ups: What is the difference between an EC2 instance and a physical server?;How quickly can a new EC2 instance be launched?

Auto Scaling Groups;VPC & Networking
All 7 EC2 & Compute questions