Types of EC2 instances

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances are optimized for different tasks. To choose from the right one for you, take into consideration the types and characteristics of each one:

• General purpose instances provide a balance of compute, memory, and networking resources. Use this type of EC2 for applications that do not require optimization in any single resource area.

• Compute optimized instances are ideal for compute-bound applications that benefic from high-performance processors. These EC2 are ideal for high-performance web-servers, compute-intensive applications servers, and dedicated gaming servers.

• Memory optimized instances are designed to deliver fast performance for workloads that process large datasets in memory (temporary storage area). The memory holds are the data and instructions that a central processing unit (CPU) needs to be able to complete actions. Ideal for workload that requires large amounts of data to be preloaded before running an application.

• Accelerated computing instances use hardware accelerators, or coprocessors, to perform some functions more efficiently than is possible in software running on CPUs. Accelerated computing instances are ideal for workloads such as graphics applications, game streaming, and application streaming.

• Storage optimized instances are designed for workloads that require high, sequential read and write access to large datasets on local storage. Examples of workloads suitable for storage optimized instances include distributed file systems, data warehousing applications, and high-frequency online transaction processing (OLTP) systems.