Amazon EC2 Reviews

We use EC2 for different kinds of websites that can be hosted, and for other directories. 

I've found this to be a user-friendly solution and I intend to explore it further because I haven't had that much experience with it. 

The first implementation we did was complex. 

I've been using this solution for six months. 

The first deployment was very complicated, but over time it became easier. 
You have to understand the logic. The initial deployment took around two hours but after that we were able to deploy more quickly. It's preferable to use an integrator if you're in a production environment with many customers. 

This is not an expensive solution. 

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

Basically, whatever we're trying to do with physical VMs on-premise, we can directly replicate them on Amazon EC2.

The solution's most valuable features are the virtual applications and the scalability.

The customization and configuration could be simplified.

Updates could be automated and simplified.

I've been using the solution for four years.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability of the solution is fantastic. It's one of our favorite features.

We've never had to contact technical support.

Previously we were using VMware. We decided to use the current solution to take advantage of its ability to scale.

The initial setup was simple. Deployment was fast. We could do it in about 75 minutes. It might even take as little as five to ten.

We have about five people handling deployment and maintenance. Mostly, they're architects.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

We're charged depending on the run time, but there are other costs as well, including costs for transactions and storage.

We also evaluated all of the other VM's.

We use the cloud deployment model.

I'd advise others to understand the costs involved before implementing the solution. There are transaction and storage costs as well as running costs.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We used it for one of the supply chain products.

Its ease of use is valuable.

Its price can be reduced. I don't see any other area for improvement.

I've been using Amazon EC2 for a couple of years.

It's stable.

It's scalable. In our organization, almost all people are using it. There are about 1,000 people. We have plans to increase its usage.

I've used their technical support, and I am satisfied with their support.

It's worth the investment.

It's expensive, and it could be cheaper.

I'd recommend Amazon EC2 to others. I'd rate it an eight out of ten.

One way we have used AWS EC2 is to be able to orchestrate the creation and termination of temporary instances used for training and demo purposes. Instead of having to wait on limited internal resources to become available, we can easily create multiple instances for use and terminate them as soon as we’re done.

The ability to quickly spin up instances on demand with zero upfront costs or infrastructure is the most valuable for me. This significantly reduces the time it takes to onboard projects or quickly create POV environments. It also enables a low entry point for users to begin development without significant expertise.

Built-in and/or integration with other services to proactively identify potential failures before they occur. For example, if capacity is low in an availability zone, recommend placements in another zone, or return capacity status before launching new instances.

Yes. Issues with stability have occurred. In some cases, we have seen where instance performance has degraded significantly to the point where they have to be destroyed and recreated. There are ways to mitigate stability issues through the use of multiple availability zones.

Yes. Issues with scalability have occurred occasionally, due to low capacity of specific instance types in some regions.

Technical support via email has been fairly responsive. A response is usually received within 24 hours.

Local VMs were being used before switching to AWS EC2. Local resources were not scalable and increased operational complexity. They were also costly to maintain.

Setup was fairly straightforward. Using the console provides an easy to understand graphical user interface. The command-line and API options tend to be slightly more difficult to use due to the learning curve.

EC2 pricing is somewhat transparent, in that AWS provides pricing for all instance types. However, the number of pricing options can be confusing, i.e., on demand vs reserved vs spot vs dedicated. It would be great if AWS provided a real-time calculator that displayed your estimated usage for a period of time, then notified you before you exceeded your estimated costs. Licenses for some instance types can be included or use BYOL, depending on the vendor.

No.

Take note of usage costs for all related services being used. For example, running an EC2 instance with vendor software may require paying for EBS volumes, Elastic IPs, Snapshots, and other software licenses. Enable Billing notifications to be alerted whenever costs exceed a certain threshold. Lockdown instances to only provide access via tightly controlled security groups. Use public key authentication, whenever possible, and restrict direct access to superuser accounts.

EC2 is an excellent IaaS service enabling quick deployment of applications.