Launch Templates and Tenancy
- A launch template specifies instance configuration (AMI ID, instance type, key pair, security groups, etc.).
- Default tenancy: shared.
- Tenancy behavior:
- Launch Template:
shared
, VPC: dedicated
→ dedicated tenancy
- Launch Template:
dedicated
, VPC: default
→ dedicated tenancy
EC2 Tenancy Options
- By default, Amazon EC2 instances run on shared tenancy.
- Dedicated Instances:
- Run on hardware dedicated to one customer.
- Isolated across AWS accounts but can share hardware across instances within same account.
- Dedicated Hosts:
- Full control over instance placement.
- Visibility into physical server.

EC2 Spot Instances
- Spot Instance = unused EC2 at reduced price.
- Pricing is determined by long-term demand/supply in each AZ.
- Spot Instance request types:
- Persistent requests reopen after interruption.
- Spot Fleets maintain target capacity by launching replacements.
- Canceling requests:
- May or may not terminate instance depending on config.
EC2 Recovery
- Recover impaired EC2 instance using CloudWatch alarms.
- Recovery applies to hardware failure or AWS-repairable issues.
- Preserves:
- Instance ID
- Private & Elastic IPs
- Metadata
- If instance is in a placement group, recovery remains within group.
- Note: Data in memory is lost.
🧠 Amazon EBS Volume Types — Memorize Like a Pro
✅ Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) — Best for High IOPS Needs
- Backed by: SSD (Solid-State Drives)
- Use Case: Mission-critical, I/O-intensive workloads (e.g., production-grade databases)
- IOPS Performance:
- Up to 50 IOPS/GB
-
Max 64,000 IOPS per volume
- Throughput: Up to 1,000 MB/s per volume
- Why Choose: Meets use-case needing 25,000 IOPS
❌ Incorrect Choices (Not suitable for high IOPS needs)
🟡 General Purpose SSD (gp2) — Balanced for General Use
- Backed by: SSD
- Use Case: Dev/Test, Boot volumes, Web servers
- Max IOPS: 16,000 IOPS (not sufficient for 25k+)
- Throughput: Moderate
- 🧠 Good all-rounder, but not built for intense workloads
🔵 Cold HDD (sc1) — For Archival Storage
- Backed by: HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
- Use Case: Infrequently accessed, cold datasets
- Max IOPS: 250 IOPS
- Throughput: Low
- 🧠 Think: Cheap, cold storage for backups
🟣 Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) — For Big, Streaming Data
- Backed by: HDD
- Use Case: Throughput-intensive workloads (e.g., MapReduce, Kafka, ETL, log processing)
- Max IOPS: 500 IOPS
- Throughput: High
- 🧠 Great for throughput, bad for high IOPS