Amazon EC2 FAQs

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Q: What can I do with Amazon EC2?

Just as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enables storage in the cloud, Amazon EC2 enables “compute” in the cloud. Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.

Q: How can I get started with Amazon EC2?

To sign up for Amazon EC2, click the “Sign up for This Web Service” button on the Amazon EC2 detail page. You must have an Amazon Web Services account to access this service; if you do not already have one, you will be prompted to create one when you begin the Amazon EC2 sign-up process. After signing up, please refer to the Amazon EC2 documentation, which includes our Getting Started Guide.

Q: What can developers now do that they could not before?

Until now, small developers did not have the capital to acquire massive compute resources and insure they had the capacity they needed to handle unexpected spikes in load. Amazon EC2 enables any developer to leverage Amazon’s own benefits of massive scale with no up-front investment or performance compromises. Developers are now free to innovate knowing that no matter how successful their businesses become, it will be inexpensive and simple to ensure they have the compute capacity they need to meet their business requirements.

The “Elastic” nature of the service allows developers to instantly scale to meet spikes in traffic or demand. When computing requirements unexpectedly change (up or down), Amazon EC2 can instantly respond, meaning that developers have the ability to control how many resources are in use at any given point in time. In contrast, traditional hosting services generally provide a fixed number of resources for a fixed amount of time, meaning that users have a limited ability to easily respond when their usage is rapidly changing, unpredictable, or is known to experience large peaks at various intervals.

Q: How do I run systems in the Amazon EC2 environment?

Once you have set up your account and uploaded your AMIs, you are ready to boot your instance. You can start your AMI on any number of instances by calling the RunInstances API. You simply need to state how many instances you wish to start. If you wish to run more than 20 instances, complete the Amazon EC2 instance request form.

If Amazon EC2 is able to fulfill your request, RunInstances will return success, and we will start setting up your instances. You can check on the status of your instances using the DescribeInstances API call. You can also programmatically terminate any number of your instances using the TerminateInstances API call.

If you prefer, you can also perform all these actions from the command line using our command line tools, which have been implemented with this web service API.

Q: How quickly will systems be running?

It typically takes less than 10 minutes from the issue of the RunInstances call to the point where all requested instances begin their boot sequences. This time is dependant on a number of factors including: the size of your AMI, the number of instances you are launching, and how recently you have launched that AMI. Images launched for the first time may take slightly longer to boot.

Q: How do I load and store my systems with Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 allows you to set up and configure everything about your instances from your operating system up to your applications. An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) is simply a packaged-up environment that includes all the necessary bits to set up and boot your instance. Your AMIs are your unit of deployment. You might have just one AMI or you might compose your system out of several building block AMIs (e.g., webservers, appservers, and databases). Amazon EC2 provides a number of command line tools to make creating an AMI easy. Once you create a custom AMI, you will need to upload it to Amazon S3. Amazon EC2 uses Amazon S3 to provide reliable, scalable storage of your AMIs so that we can boot them when you ask us to do so.

Or, if you want, you don’t have to set up your own AMI from scratch. You can choose from a number of globally available AMIs that provide useful instances. For example, if you just want a simple Linux server, you can choose one of the standard Linux distribution AMIs.

Q: How do I access my systems?

The RunInstances call that initiates execution of your application stack will return a set of DNS names, one for each system that is being booted. This name can be used to access the system exactly as you would if it were in your own data center. You own that machine while your operating system stack is executing on it.

Q: Is Amazon EC2 used in conjunction with Amazon S3?

Yes, Amazon EC2 is always used jointly with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which gives developers access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. In order to execute systems in the Amazon EC2 environment, developers use the tools provided to load their Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) into Amazon S3 and to move them between Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2. See "How do I load and store my systems with Amazon EC2?" for more information about AMIs.

We expect developers to find the combination of Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 to be very useful. Amazon EC2 provides cheap, scalable compute in the cloud while Amazon S3 allows users to store their data reliably.

Q: How many instances can I run in Amazon EC2?

You are limited to running 20 instances per region. If you need more instances, complete the Amazon EC2 instance request form and your use case and instance increase will be considered. Limit increases are tied to the region they were requested for.

Q: How quickly can I scale my capacity both up and down?

Amazon EC2 provides a truly elastic computing environment. Amazon EC2 enables you to increase or decrease capacity within minutes, not hours or days. You can commission one, hundreds or even thousands of server instances simultaneously. When you need more instances, you simply call RunInstances, and Amazon EC2 will typically set up your new instances in a matter of minutes. Of course, because this is all controlled with web service APIs, your application can automatically scale itself up and down depending on its needs.

Q: What operating system environments are supported?

Amazon EC2 currently supports a variety of operating systems including: RedHat Linux, Windows Server, openSuSE Linux, Fedora, Debian, OpenSolaris, Cent OS, Gentoo Linux, and Oracle Linux. We are looking for ways to expand it to other platforms in future releases.

Q: How is this service different than a plain hosting service?

Traditional hosting services generally provide a pre-configured resource for a fixed amount of time and at a predetermined cost. Amazon EC2 differs fundamentally in the flexibility, control and significant cost savings it offers developers, allowing them to treat Amazon EC2 as their own personal data center with the benefit of Amazon.com’s robust infrastructure.

When computing requirements unexpectedly change (up or down), Amazon EC2 can instantly respond, meaning that developers have the ability to control how many resources are in use at any given point in time. In contrast, traditional hosting services generally provide a fixed number of resources for a fixed amount of time, meaning that users have a limited ability to easily respond when their usage is rapidly changing, unpredictable, or is known to experience large peaks at various intervals.

Secondly, many hosting services don’t provide full control over the compute resources being provided. Using Amazon EC2, developers can choose not only to initiate or shut down instances at any time, they can completely customize the configuration of their instances to suit their needs – and change it at any time. Most hosting services cater more towards groups of users with similar system requirements, and so offer limited ability to change these.

Finally, with Amazon EC2, developers enjoy the benefit of paying only for their actual resource consumption – and at very low rates. Most hosting services require users to pay a fixed, up-front fee irrespective of their actual computing power used, and so users risk overbuying resources to compensate for the inability to quickly scale up resources within a short time frame.

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Billing

Q: How will I be charged and billed for my use of Amazon EC2?

You pay only for what you use and there is no minimum fee. Pricing is per instance-hour consumed for each instance type. Partial instance-hours consumed are billed as full hours. Data transferred between two Amazon Web Services within the same region (i.e. between Amazon EC2 US and another AWS service in the US, or between Amazon EC2 Europe and another AWS service in Europe) is free of charge (i.e., $0.00 per GB). Data transferred between AWS services in different regions will be charged as Internet Data Transfer on both sides of the transfer. Usage for other Amazon Web Services is billed separately from Amazon EC2.

For EC2 pricing information, please visit the pricing section on the EC2 detail page.

Q: When does billing of my Amazon EC2 systems begin and end?

Billing commences when Amazon EC2 initiates the boot sequence of an AMI instance. Billing ends when the instance terminates, which could occur through a web services command, by running “shutdown -h”, or through instance failure.

Q: What defines billable EC2 instance-hours?

Instance-hours are billed for any time your instances are in a “running” state. If you no longer wish to be charged for your instance, you must terminate it to avoid being billed for additional instance-hours.

Q: If I have two instances in different availability zones, how will I be charged for regional data transfer?

Each instance is charged for its data in and data out. Therefore, if data is transferred between these two instances, it is charged out for the first instance and in for the second instance.

Q. If I have two instances in different regions, how will I be charged for data transfer?

Each instance is charged for its data in and data out at Internet Data Transfer rates. Therefore, if data is transferred between these two instances, it is charged at Internet Data Transfer Out for the first instance and at Internet Data Transfer In for the second instance.

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Hardware Information

Q: What kind of hardware will my application stack run on?

Your application will execute on a virtual computer that we call an instance. You have the choice of several instance types, allowing you to select a configuration of memory, CPU, and instance storage that is optimal for your application:

Standard Instances
Instances of this family are well suited for most applications.
Small Instance (Default)

1.7 GB of memory, 1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit), 160 GB of instance storage, 32-bit platform

Large Instance

7.5 GB of memory, 4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each), 850 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform

Extra Large Instance

15 GB of memory, 8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform

High-CPU Instances

Instances of this family have proportionally more CPU resources than memory (RAM) and are well suited for compute-intensive applications.
High-CPU Medium Instance

1.7 GB of memory, 5 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each), 350 GB of instance storage, 32-bit platform

High-CPU Extra Large Instance

7 GB of memory, 20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform

See Amazon EC2 Instance Types for details on available configurations. You have full and exclusive access to an instance once you have commissioned it.

Q: How do I select the right instance type?

Amazon EC2 instances are grouped into two families: Standard and High-CPU. Standard Instances have memory to CPU ratios suitable for most general purpose applications; High-CPU instances have proportionally more CPU resources than memory (RAM) and are well suited for compute-intensive applications. When choosing instance types, you should consider the characteristics of your application with regards to resource utilization and select the optimal instance family and size.

For most applications, the standard instance types are appropriate. These include the Small Instance (m1.small), Large Instance (m1.large), and Extra Large Instance (m1.xlarge). For compute-intensive applications such as rendering, search indexing, and computational analysis, the High-CPU Instances are well suited. The High-CPU instance types are the High-CPU Medium Instance (c1.medium) and the High-CPU Extra Large Instance (c1.xlarge). For details, please see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

One of the advantages of EC2 is that you pay by the instance hour, which makes it convenient and inexpensive to test the performance of your application on different instance families and types. One good way to determine the most appropriate instance family and instance type is to launch test instances and benchmark your application.

Q: What is a “EC2 Compute Unit” and why did you introduce it?

Transitioning to a utility computing model fundamentally changes how developers have been trained to think about CPU resources. Instead of purchasing or leasing a particular processor to use for several months or years, you are renting capacity by the hour. Because Amazon EC2 is built on commodity hardware, over time there may be several different types of physical hardware underlying EC2 instances. Our goal is to provide a consistent amount of CPU capacity no matter what the actual underlying hardware.

Amazon EC2 uses a variety of measures to provide each instance with a consistent and predictable amount of CPU capacity. In order to make it easy for developers to compare CPU capacity between different instance types, we have defined an Amazon EC2 Compute Unit. The amount of CPU that is allocated to a particular instance is expressed in terms of these EC2 Compute Units. We use several benchmarks and tests to manage the consistency and predictability of the performance from an EC2 Compute Unit. One EC2 Compute Unit provides the equivalent CPU capacity of a 1.0-1.2 GHz 2007 Opteron or 2007 Xeon processor. This is also the equivalent to an early-2006 1.7 GHz Xeon processor referenced in our original documentation. Over time, we may add or substitute measures that go into the definition of an EC2 Compute Unit, if we find metrics that will give you a clearer picture of compute capacity.

See Amazon EC2 Instance Types for additional details.

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Security

Q: How do I prevent other people from viewing my systems?

You have complete control over the visibility of your systems. The Amazon EC2 security systems allow you to place your running instances into arbitrary groups of your choice. Using the web services interface, you can then specify which groups may communicate with which other groups, and also which IP subnets on the Internet may talk to which groups. This allows you to control access to your instances in our highly dynamic environment. Of course, you should also secure your instance as you would any other Linux host.

Q: Where can I find more information about security on AWS?

For more information on security on AWS please refer to our Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes document and to our Amazon EC2 running Windows Security Guide.

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Elastic IP

Q: Why am I limited to 5 Elastic IP addresses per region?

Public (IPV4) internet addresses are a scarce resource. There is only a limited amount of public IP space available, and Amazon EC2 is committed to helping use that space efficiently.

By default, all accounts are limited to 5 Elastic IP addresses per region. If you need more the 5 Elastic IP addresses, we ask that you apply for your limit to be raised. We will ask you to think through your use case and help us understand your need for additional addresses. You can apply for more Elastic IP address here. Any increases will be specific to the region they have been requested for.

Q: Why am I charged when my Elastic IP address is not associated with an instance?

In order to help ensure our customers are efficiently using the Elastic IP addresses, we impose the $.01/hr charge for each address when it is not mapped to an instance.

Q: Do I need one Elastic IP address for every instance that I have running?

No. You do not need an Elastic IP address for all your instances. By default, every instance comes with a private IP address and an internet routable public IP address. These addresses are fixed for the life of the instance. These IP addresses should be adequate for many applications where you do not need a long lived internet routable end point. Compute clusters, web crawling, and backend services are all examples of applications that typically do not require Elastic IP addresses.

Q: How long does it take to remap an Elastic IP address?

The remap process currently takes several minutes from when you instruct us to remap the Elastic IP until it fully propagates through our system.

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Availability Zones

Q: How isolated are Availability Zones from one another?

Each availability zone runs on its own physically distinct, independent infrastructure, and is engineered to be highly reliable. Common points of failures like generators and cooling equipment are not shared across Availability Zones. Additionally, they are physically separate, such that even extremely uncommon disasters such as fires, tornados or flooding would only affect a single Availability Zone.

Q: Is Amazon EC2 running in more than one region? When will EC2 be expanding to new regions?

Yes, EC2 is running in two regions, each of which has multiple Availability Zones. The regions are in the US and in Europe.

Q: How can I make sure that I am in the same Availability Zone as another developer?

We do not currently support the ability to coordinate launches into the same Availability Zone across AWS developer accounts.

Q: If I transfer data between availability zones using public IP addresses, will I be charged twice for Regional Data Transfer (once because it’s across zones, and a second time because I’m using public IP addresses)?

No. Regional Data Transfer rates apply if at least one of the following is true, but is only charged once for a given instance even if both are true:

The other instance is in a different availability zone, regardless of which type of address is used.
Public or Elastic IP addresses are used, regardless of which zone the other instance is in.

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Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS)

Q: What happens to my data when a system terminates?

The data stored on a specific instance persists only as long as that instance is alive. You have several options to persist your data:

Prior to terminating an instance, backup the data to persistent storage, either over the Internet, or to Amazon S3.
Run a redundant set of systems with replication of the data between them.

We recommend you should not rely on a single instance to provide reliability for your data.

Q: What kind of latency and throughput rates can I expect to see from Amazon EBS volumes?

The latency from an Amazon EC2 instance to an Amazon EBS volume is similar to the latency you would see from the local Amazon EC2 instance storage drive. I/O rates can vary significantly based on the size of the requests, the randomness of the access patterns, and the caching strategy used by the application. As such, the most accurate measure is to benchmark your specific application on an Amazon EBS volume.

Q: Do you plan to support multiple instances accessing a single volume?

While you are able to attach multiple volumes to a single instance, attaching multiple instances to one volume is not supported at this time.

Q: Will I be able to access my snapshots using the regular Amazon S3 APIs?

No, snapshots are only available through the Amazon EC2 APIs.

Q: Do volumes need to be un-mounted in order to take a snapshot? Does the snapshot need to complete before the volume can be used again?

No, snapshots can be done in real time while the volume is attached and in use. However, snapshots only capture data that has been written to your Amazon EBS volume, which might exclude any data that has been locally cached by your application or OS. In order to ensure consistent snapshots, we recommend cleanly detaching the volume, issuing the snapshot command, and then reattaching the volume.

Q: Are snapshots versioned? Can I read an older snapshot to do a point-in-time recovery?

Each snapshot is given a unique identifier, and customers can create volumes based on any of their existing snapshots.

Q: Do you offer encryption on Amazon EBS volumes or snapshots?

No. If encryption is important to you, we recommend that you run an encrypted file system on top of your Amazon EBS volume.

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Amazon CloudWatch

Q: Which Amazon EC2 regions does Amazon CloudWatch support?

Amazon CloudWatch is available in the US Region and will be available in the EU Region soon.

Q: What is the minimum time interval granularity for the data that Amazon CloudWatch receives and aggregates?

Metrics are received and aggregated at 1 minute intervals.

Q: Which operating systems does Amazon CloudWatch support?

Amazon CloudWatch receives and provides metrics for all Amazon EC2 instances and should work with any operating system currently supported by the Amazon EC2 service.

Q: Will I lose the metrics data if I disable monitoring for an Amazon EC2 instance?

You can retrieve metrics data for any Amazon EC2 instance up to 2 weeks from the time you started to monitor it. After 2 weeks, metrics data for an Amazon EC2 instance will not be available if monitoring was disabled for that Amazon EC2 instance. If you want to archive metrics beyond 2 weeks you can do so by calling mon-get-stats command from the command line and storing the results in Amazon S3 or Amazon SimpleDB.

Q: Can I access the metrics data for a terminated Amazon EC2 instance or a deleted Elastic Load Balancer?

Yes. Amazon CloudWatch stores metrics for terminated Amazon EC2 instances or deleted Elastic Load Balancers for 2 weeks.

Q: Does the Amazon CloudWatch monitoring charge change depending on which type of Amazon EC2 instance I monitor?

No, the Amazon CloudWatch monitoring charge does not vary by Amazon EC2 instance type.

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Auto Scaling

Q: Which Amazon EC2 regions does Auto Scaling support?

Auto Scaling is available in the US Region and will be available in the EU Region soon.

Q: Can I scale up my Amazon EC2 capacity fast but scale it down slowly?

Yes. For example, you can define a scale up condition to increase your Amazon EC2 capacity by 10% and a scale down condition to decrease it by 5%.

Q: How does Auto Scaling decide which Amazon EC2 instance in the Auto Scaling Group to terminate when the scaling condition is met?

Auto Scaling will randomly pick and terminate any Amazon EC2 instance from your Auto Scaling Group if the scaling condition is met.

Q: What happens if a scaling activity causes me to reach my Amazon EC2 limit of instances?

Auto Scaling Service cannot scale past the Amazon EC2 limit of instances that you can run. If you need more Amazon EC2 instances, complete the Amazon EC2 instance request form.

Q: What happens to my Amazon EC2 instances if I delete my Auto Scaling Group?

Auto Scaling will not allow you to delete your Auto Scaling Group if it contains running Amazon EC2 instances. You have to empty the Auto Scaling Group by setting its size to 0 using the as-set-desired-capacity command from the command line. You can safely delete your Auto Scaling Group once it is empty.

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Elastic Load Balancing

Q: Which Amazon EC2 regions does Elastic Load Balancing support?

Elastic Load Balancing is available in the US Region and will be available in the EU Region soon.

Q: Which operating systems does Elastic Load Balancing support?

Elastic Load Balancing supports Amazon EC2 instances with any operating system currently supported by the Amazon EC2 service.

Q: Which protocols does Elastic Load Balancing support?

Elastic Load Balancing supports load balancing of applications using HTTP and TCP protocols.

Q: Can I use a single Elastic Load Balancer for handling HTTP and HTTPS requests?

Yes, you can map the HTTP port 80 and HTTPS port 443 to a single Elastic Load Balancer.

Q: How many connections will my load balanced Amazon EC2 instances need to accept from the Elastic Load Balancer?

Elastic Load Balancer does not cap the number of connections that it can attempt to establish with your load balanced Amazon EC2 instances. You can expect this number to scale with the number of concurrent HTTP requests (for HTTP routing) or the number of concurrent TCP connections (for TCP routing) that the Elastic Load Balancer receives.

Q: Can I load balance Amazon EC2 instances launched using a Paid AMI?

Not at this time. Manually registering a Paid AMI based Amazon EC2 instance with the Elastic Load Balancer or using a Paid AMI with an Auto Scaling Group that is associated with the Elastic Load Balancer is not supported. Elastic Load Balancing with Paid AMI support will be available soon.

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Reserved Instances

Q: What is a Reserved Instance?

Reserved Instances give you the option to make a low, one-time payment for each instance you want to reserve and in turn receive a significant discount on the hourly usage charge for that instance. After the one-time payment for an instance, that instance is reserved for you, and you have no further obligation; you may choose to run that instance for the discounted usage rate for the duration of your term, or if and when you do not use the instance, you will not pay usage charges on it.

Q: How is a Reserved Instance different than an On-Demand Instance?

Functionally, Reserved Instances and On-Demand Instances are exactly the same. They are launched and terminated in the same way, and they function identically once running. This makes it easy for you to seamlessly use both Reserved and On-Demand Instances without making any changes to your code. The only difference is that with a Reserved Instance, you pay a low, one-time payment and receive a lower usage rate to run the instance than with an On-Demand Instance.

Q: How do I purchase and start up a Reserved Instance?

You can purchase Reserved Instances through the AWS Management Console or using EC2 API tools. In the AWS Management Console, simply click the “Reserved Instances” button in the EC2 Instances section, and select “Purchase Reserved Instances”. The wizard will walk you through the purchase.

Using the API tools, you can list the available Reserved Instances for purchase with the DescribeReservedInstancesOfferings API method. You can then purchase an EC2 Reserved Instance by calling the PurchaseReservedInstancesOffering method.

Launching a Reserved Instance is no different than launching an On-Demand Instance. You simply use the RunInstances command or launch an instance via the AWS Management Console. Amazon EC2 will optimally apply the cheapest rate that you are eligible for in the background.

Q: How do I control which instances are billed at the Reserved Instance rate?

The RunInstances command does not distinguish between On-Demand and Reserved Instances. When computing your bill, our system will automatically optimize which instances are charged at the lower Reserved Instance rate to ensure you always pay the lowest amount.

Q: How many Reserved Instances can I purchase?

You can purchase as few as 1 or as many as 20 Reserved Instances per Availability Zone each month with the EC2 APIs. If you need additional Reserved Instances, complete the form found here.

Q: Can a Reserved Instance that I’ve bought for a particular instance type (i.e. High-CPU Extra Large Instance) be applied to a different instance type that I am running (i.e. Standard Large Instance)?

No. Each Reserved Instance is associated with a specific instance type, and can only be applied to that instance type for the duration of the Reserved Instance term.

Q: Can I move a Reserved Instance from one Region or Availability Zone to another?

No. Each Reserved Instance is associated with a specific Region and Availability Zone, which is fixed for the lifetime of the Reserved Instance and cannot be changed.

Q: Do I need to specify an Availability Zone when I launch my instances in order to take advantage of my Reserved Instances?

Yes. When you purchase a Reserved Instance you specify the Availability Zone in which you want to reserve that instance. In order to use that Reserved Instance, you need to ensure that you launch your instance in that same Availability Zone. Additionally, you can purchase a Reserved Instance in an Availability Zone where you already have a running instance, and the Reserved Instance will automatically get applied to that existing instance.

Q: Can I cancel a Reserved Instance?

The one-time payment for a Reserved Instances is not refundable. However, you can choose not to run or entirely stop using your Reserved Instance at any time, at which point you will not incur any further usage charges.

Q: When are Reserved Instances activated?

A Reserved Instance is activated once your one-time payment has successfully been authorized. You can follow the status of your Reserved Instance on the AWS Account Activity page.

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Amazon EC2 Running Microsoft Windows and Other Third-Party Software

Q. Can I use my existing Windows Server license with EC2?

No, Microsoft Windows Server licensing does not currently support using your existing Windows license in Amazon EC2 or any other cloud environment. We encourage you to work with your Microsoft account representative to understand licensing options.

Q. What software licenses can I bring to the Windows environment?

Specific software license terms vary from vendor to vendor. Therefore, we recommend that you check the licensing terms of your software vendor to determine if your existing licenses are authorized for use in Amazon EC2.

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Amazon EC2 Running IBM

Q. How am I billed for my use of Amazon EC2 running IBM?

You pay only for what you use and there is no minimum fee. Pricing is per instance-hour consumed for each instance type. Partial instance-hours consumed are billed as full hours. Data transfer for Amazon EC2 running IBM is billed and tiered separately from Amazon EC2. Data transferred between two Amazon Web Services within the same region (i.e. between Amazon EC2 US and another AWS service in the US, or between Amazon EC2 Europe and another AWS service in Europe) is free of charge (i.e., $0.00 per GB). Data transferred between AWS services in different regions will be charged as Internet Data Transfer on both sides of the transfer.

For Amazon EC2 running IBM pricing information, please visit the pricing section on the Amazon EC2 running IBM detail page.

Q. Can I use Amazon DevPay with Amazon EC2 running IBM?

No, you cannot use DevPay to bundle products on top of Amazon EC2 running IBM at this time.

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Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Q. What does your Amazon EC2 Service Level Agreement guarantee?

The Amazon EC2 SLA guarantees 99.95% availability of the service within a Region over a trailing 365 day period.

Q. How do I know if I qualify for a SLA Service Credit?

You are eligible for a SLA credit if the Region that you are operating in has an annual availability of less than 99.95% as measured over a trailing 365-day period. For full details on all of the terms and conditions of the SLA, as well as details on how to submit a claim, please see http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla.

Q. What does your Amazon EC2 Service Level Agreement guarantee?

The Amazon EC2 SLA guarantees 99.95% availability of the service within a Region over a trailing 365 day period.

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Infrastructure Services

Payments & Billing

On-Demand Workforce

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Alexa Web Services

Merchant Services

Amazon Fulfillment Web Service (Amazon FWS)