Amazon EC2 provides the following features:
· Virtual computing environments, known as instances
· Preconfigured templates for your instances, known as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), that package the bits you need for your server (including the operating system and additional software)
· Various configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity for your instances, known as instance types
· Secure login information for your instances using key pairs (AWS stores the public key, and you store the private key in a secure place)
· Storage volumes for temporary data that's deleted when you stop or terminate your instance, known as instance store volumes
· Persistent storage volumes for your data using Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), known as Amazon EBS volumes
· Multiple physical locations for your resources, such as instances and Amazon EBS volumes, known as Regions and Availability Zones
· A firewall that enables you to specify the protocols, ports, and source IP ranges that can reach your instances using security groups
· Static IPv4 addresses for dynamic cloud computing, known as Elastic IP addresses
· Metadata, known as tags, that you can create and assign to your Amazon EC2 resources
