Chapter 2. Welcome

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: 2009-03-01

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Welcome

Topics

This is the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Developer Guide. This section describes who should read this guide, how the guide is organized, and other resources related to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud.

The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud is occasionally referred to within this guide as simply "Amazon EC2"; all copyrights and legal protections still apply.

Audience

This guide picks up where the Getting Started Guide ends and provides you with the information to create more sophisticated Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), using advanced service features.

Required Knowledge and Skills

Use of this guide assumes you are familiar with the following:

XML (For an overview, go to the W3 Schools XML Tutorial)
Basic understanding of web services (go to W3 Schools Web Services Tutorial)

You should also have worked through the Amazon EC2 Getting Started Guide, installed the command line and API tools, and have a general understanding of the service.

Reader Feedback

The online version of this guide provides a link at the top of each page that enables you to enter feedback about this guide. We strive to make our guides as complete, error free, and easy to read as possible. You can help by giving us feedback. Thank you in advance!

How This Guide Is Organized

This guide is organized into several major sections described in the following table.

Information	Relevant Sections
Describes how to create a customized software package (operating system and applications) that you can run on Amazon EC2	Creating and Preparing AMIs
Describes Amazon EC2 instances and provides tips for using them effectively	Launching and Using Instances
Describes instance network addressing, explains the distributed firewall, and provides usage examples	Instance Addressing and Network Security
Explains the basics of using the SOAP and Query APIs, including signing requests	Using the APIs
Provides a comprehensive reference to the SOAP and Query APIs	API Reference
Provides a comprehensive reference to the Amazon EC2 command line tools	Command Line Tools Reference
Provides answers to commonly asked questions	Technical FAQ
Describes Amazon EC2 terms	Glossary
Typographic and symbol conventions	Document Conventions

Each section is written to stand on its own, so you should be able to look up the information you need and go back to work. However, you can also read through the major sections sequentially to get in-depth knowledge about Amazon EC2.

Related Resources

The following table lists related resources that you'll find useful as you work with this service.

Resource	Description
Amazon EC2 Getting Started Guide	The Getting Started Guide provides a quick tutorial of the service based on a simple use case. Examples and instructions are included.
Amazon EC2 Release Notes	The Release Notes give a high-level overview of the current release. They specifically note any new features, corrections, and known issues.
AWS Developer Resource Center	A central starting point to find documentation, code samples, release notes, and other information to help you build innovative applications with AWS.
Discussion Forums	A community-based forum for developers to discuss technical questions related to Amazon Web Services.
AWS Support Center	The home page for AWS Technical Support, including access to our Developer Forums, Technical FAQs, Service Status page, and AWS Premium Support (if you are subscribed to this program).
AWS Premium Support Information	The primary web page for information about AWS Premium Support, a one-on-one, fast-response support channel to help you build and run applications on AWS Infrastructure Services.
E-mail address for questions related to your AWS account: `<[email protected]>`	This e-mail address is only for account questions. For technical questions, use the Discussion Forums.
Conditions of Use	Detailed information about the copyright and trademark usage at Amazon.com and other topics.

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