Amazon EC2 is a web service that enables you to provision on-demand
compute capacity from Amazon's world class data centers.
This means you can allocate or release resources within minutes, not hours or
weeks, as your application requires. Most importantly, you only pay for what
you use. If you use a server instance for an hour, you pay for an hour. If you
use an instance for a year, you pay for a year.
Although the applications for Amazon EC2 are only limited by your ingenuity, the
following is a list of popular uses for Amazon EC2:
Scalable Applications—You can build a scalable application that shrinks or expands
to meet your current demands.
This can help you use only the compute resources
that you need and can help you respond to events where a mention on a popular
news site can result in a dramatic spike in traffic.
Temporary Events—You can use Amazon EC2 for temporary solutions and one-off events that
would require you to maintain a fleet of compute resources that are normally idle.
This includes hosting conferences in virtual worlds, live blogging, distribution of newly
released media, and short-term promotional websites.
Batch Processing—You can use Amazon EC2 for projects that require massive compute resources
which would be expensive to build on your own.
This includes video and image processing,
financial data processing, and science and research applications.
Fault Resilient Applications—You can build an application across multiple availability
zones which will be protected against the loss of an entire physical location.