Compute services are the backbone that power most web-based applications. They are the foundation that many other Amazon Web Services (AWS) offerings are built upon. In this course, you will explore the different families of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances and identify the target workloads for each family. You will also learn about different instance types and how to select the best instance type to maximize price and performance.

This course includes a use case scenario to help you learn how to differentiate between the different compute options and how to select the best compute option for a given workload.

• Course level: Foundational
• Duration: 50 minutes

Activities

This course includes interactive lessons and knowledge check questions.

Course objectives

In this course, you will learn to:

• Identify the different families of EC2 instances and the target workload for each family
• Balance cost and performance when selecting an EC2 instance type
• Discuss the advantages of keeping up to date with new instance types

Intended audience

This course is intended for:

• Cloud architects
• DevOps engineers
• Operations staff
• Developers

Prerequisites

We recommend that attendees of this course have reviewed:

• AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials or AWS Technical Essentials 
• AWS Compute Services Overview

Course outline

Section 0: Course Introduction and Scenario

• Lesson 1: Introduction
• Lesson 2: Course Scenario

•       Course scenario video

Section 1: Working with Amazon EC2 Instances

• Lesson 1: Amazon EC2 Instance Families

•       Instance types
•       Decoding instance names
•       Instance sizing
•       Additional characteristics
•       Knowledge check

• Lesson 2: Selecting the Correct Instance Type

•       Use cases
•       Experiment with instance types
•       Using newer processor generations
•       Changing instance types

Section 2: Balancing Cost and Performance

• Lesson 1: Amazon EC2 Instance Pricing

•       Advantages of cloud computing
•       Pricing for Amazon EC2
•       Knowledge check

• Lesson 2: The Value of Performance

• Value of performance
• Consider your Region
• Where can you get help with sizing?

Section 3: Working with tools

• Lesson 1: Available Tools

•       AWS Compute Optimizer
•       Findings
•       Pricing calculator
•       AWS Cost Explorer
•       Usage reports and limits

Section 4: Staying Updated

• Lesson 1: Advantages of Updating Instance Types

•       Lower pricing
•       Faster performance
•       Benefits of a new generation
•       What’s New in AWS?
•       AWS Health Dashboard
•       Knowledge check

Section 5: Course Summary and Additional Resources

• Lesson 1: Scenario Summary
• Lesson 2: Additional Resources

• Amazon EC2 basics (links to resources)
• Amazon EC2 training (additional training)