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There are a number of reasons why you may wish to change an EC2 instance running in AWS. In this post, Karl covers the pre-requisites for changing AWS EC2 instance types, about EBS and store backed instances, and how to choose the best instance type for your requirements. Or, you can go straight to the step-by-step guide to upgrade or resize your EC2 instance type. AWS Cloud & EC2 Instance TypesEC2, or Elastic Compute Cloud, is Amazon Web Services IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) offering – essentially it is a service for running virtual machines in the AWS cloud, where developers can upgrade or change their specification, or ‘instance type’, according to current usage. With over 275 instance configurations – based on CPU, RAM, storage type and network performance – users need to evaluate their important metrics and monitor performance of the instance specification to ensure best efficiency. Want to know more about EC2 and all the different instance types? Read this article first: AWS EC2 – Everything You Need To Know About EC2 Instances Here are some of the most common reasons to change instance type:
Pre-requisitesIf you decide that you need to change instance type for performance or cost management reasons, you can simply resize it to another instance type as long as:
How to upgrade or resize EBS backed EC2 instanceIf the EC2 instance you want to change has an EBS (Elastic Block Store) root partition, you can simply change or ‘resize’ the instance. The instance type that you want to resize to must be compatible with the current instance type, otherwise you will need to create a new instance and migrate your apps and data to the new instance (see next section for details on how to do this). In order to resize an EBS backed instance you must first stop the instance. When stopping or starting an EC2 instance you need to be aware that:
Follow these steps to resize your EC2 instance in the AWS Console:
How to change Instance Store backed EC2 Instance TypeThe process is a little more complicated if you want to change the instance type of an Instance Store backed EC2 instance type. It is not possible to simply change the instance type – you must migrate to a new instance type by creating an image of the existing instance and launching a new instance of the desired type from the image. Follow these steps to migrate an instance store backed instance:
Which EC2 Instance Type Do I need?If you know you need to change your EC2 instance type, but you are unsure which instance type to select from the dazzling array of almost 300 instance types, fear not, you are in luck. AWS Compute Optimizer is on hand to provide recommendations to help with improving performance, saving money, or both. Compute Optimizer analyses existing EC2 instance specifications and utilization metrics. By comparing the data, it will recommend which EC2 instance types are best suited to your workloads. Compute Optimizer recommendations fall into the following categories:
Although Compute Optimizer is free to use, you must first opt in to start the collection of data on which the recommendations will be based. It may take up to 12 hours before any data or recommendations are available. Once Compute Optimizer has made recommendations, you can find them in the EC2 console by selecting and instance, then in the ‘Details’ tab, under ‘Finding’: The recommendation will display the suggested instance type along with the hourly on-demand price for the recommended instance. So there you have it. AWS has the tools to help you select the appropriate instance type from a huge list of options. If this all still sounds a little overwhelming, Logicata are here to help. Check out our AWS Managed Services – we’re routinely optimizing EC2 instances for our clients while minimizing downtime, so perhaps we can assist you too! What must be specified when launching an EC2?Know the basics of launching an Amazon EC2 instance.
To launch an instance, you must specify an, AMI, which defines the software on the instance at launch, and an instance type, which defines the virtual hardware supporting the instance (memory, vCPUs, and so on).
What are the steps of launching an EC2 instance?Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/ . Choose Launch Instance. In Step 1: Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), find an Amazon Linux 2 AMI at the top of the list and choose Select. In Step 2: Choose an Instance Type, choose Next: Configure Instance Details.
Which AWS component provides the information required to launch an instance in EC2?An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is a supported and maintained image provided by AWS that provides the information required to launch an instance.
When you first launch an instance what state does it enter?When you launch an instance, it enters the pending state (1).
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