EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud)

EC2 stands for Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. Using EC2 you can launch instances (specific packages of dedicated compute resources) that look and feel just like traditional remote servers. Resources are delivered in a matter of seconds, not days or weeks as with traditional providers and you can now request 10, 100, 1000+ servers based on your web applications needs at any given time. EC2 changes the way that computing resources are delivered to the consumer. You are no longer limited by server capacity or long term service contracts. EC2 delivers a utility computing model where you pay as you go and only pay for what you use. It also provides full control of these resources where you can launch and terminate new servers at will.