What is Amazon EC2?

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provides resizable virtual servers (instances) in the cloud. You choose the instance type (CPU, memory, storage, networking), operating system, and software. EC2 offers multiple purchasing options: On-Demand (pay per hour/second), Reserved Instances (1 or 3-year commitment for discount), Spot Instances (unused capacity at up to 90% discount), and Savings Plans.