Chapter 1. Welcome

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud: 2009-08-15

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Welcome

Topics

This is the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud User 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.

Who Should Read This Guide

This guide is designed for users that will administer Amazon EC2 instances using the AWS Management Console and the command line tools. This guide picks up where the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Getting Started Guide ends and provides you with the information to create more sophisticated Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), and describes 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 Elastic Compute Cloud Getting Started Guide, set up the command line tools or AWS Management Console, 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
Features, common uses, and how we charge for Amazon EC2.	Introduction to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Amazon EC2 concepts and an overview of major Amazon EC2 features.	Amazon EC2 Concepts
Information about how to create a customized software package (operating system and applications) that you can run on Amazon EC2, how to launch instances of the package, and how to access the instances after they launch. Additionally, describes how to use major Amazon EC2 features. These include instance addressing, network security, regions and Availability Zones, Windows, Reserved Instances, and Amazon EBS.	Using Amazon EC2
Answers to commonly asked questions.	Technical FAQ
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.

Amazon EC2 Resources

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

Resource	Description
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud 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 Elastic Compute Cloud User Guide	The Console and Command Line User Guide provides conceptual information about Amazon EC2 and describes how to use Amazon EC2 features using the AWS Management Console and command line tools.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Developer Guide	The Developer Guide provides conceptual information about Amazon EC2 and describes how to use Amazon EC2 features using the SOAP and Query APIs.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud API Reference	The API Reference contains a comprehensive description of all SOAP and Query APIs. Additionally, it contains a list of all SOAP data types.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud Command Line Reference	The Command Line Tools Reference contains a comprehensive description of all the command line tools and their options.
Amazon EC2 Technical FAQ	The FAQ covers the top questions developers have asked about this product.
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.
AWS Management Console	The console allows you to perform most of the functions of Amazon EC2 and other AWS products without programming.
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.
Amazon EC2 Product Information	The primary web page for information about Amazon EC2.
Form for questions related to your AWS account: Contact Us	This form 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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