What components should I purchase at AWS? [closed]

Question

This might sound silly question, but it is a real problem which I need help in regards. Unlike "normal" VPS providers I used to such as linode.com and slicehost.com, at AWS they have all those fancy made up words which each require looking at their internal dictionary to explain you what it means.

They call this "simple calculator" but this is the most complex UI I have come across in long time.

I need a plain vanilla linux server which I already figured should be the Large from the Standard Reserved Instance and Large, it shall have a route-able IP address and internal one so I can connect few instances from the 'LAN'.

I do not need any database services or messaging queue or anything else.

Can one tell me the items I should purchase?

Answer 1

All you need to do to get what you are looking for is to choose an instance size, as you've already done, and spin up an instance of that size. Each instance is allocated a routable public IP address, so you don't need to purchase an Elastic IP. As an earlier answerer pointed out, you will want to consider whether you want an EBS-backed instance or an ephemeral instance. If you need decent I/O performance, use an ephemeral instance and take regular backups, EBS is a dog at I/O performance (which makes it crazy that they charge for I/O on EBS instances, but at least the cost is minimal).

If you intend to run this system for a long time (10+ months, last I calculated), you are better off getting a 1 year reservation. I haven't done the math on 3 year reservations yet.

But, aside from the excess information above, all you want is a single instance.

Answer 2

Routable ip address = Elastic IP
VPS = EC2 instance
1 "ECU processing unit" = ~1Ghz Xeon core

Basically you just need an instance and an elastic IP. Internally you can send all data through the NAT, or ARP address - no provision needed.

You can tinker with micro instances for super cheap to better understand the workflow and terminology in AWS (that's how I learned)

More info than you wanted:

When you launch an instance, If it is an EBS (elastic block store) based - which is a network based volume, this will affect your cost - as you're charged for how much EBS space you're using, how much IO activity and how much volume your snapshots take (if any). The upside to using EBS is high because it allows you to change instance types on the fly on the same volume (e.g.: no file synchronization required).

If you want to dial up/down an instance that's non-ebs, you have to create an 'AMI' (amazon machine image) (A clone of your machine in it's current state) and then launch a new instance based off of that AMI, this can be a pain in some circumstances because you still have to sync the files that have changed on the live instance since the AMI was created.