Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon S3: The Ultimate Comparison (2023)

always hard to beatAmazon Web ServicesWhen it comes to computing and storage services for cloud infrastructure. Add to that the ever-increasing need to store, restore, backup, and protect the massive amounts of data that organizations must deal with today, and no one gets it right quite like AWS.

Speaking of data services,Amazon EC2(elastic cloud computing) andAmazon S3(Simple Storage Service) are two key AWS tools that can help you improve operational efficiency in a number of ways. S3 is a lightweight service for storing data, while EC2 is a cloud-based web service that provides secure and resizable computing power.

This blog will help you understand the difference between AWS EC2 and AWS S3: what they are, how they work, features, advantages, disadvantages, use cases, similarities, differences, and more. So let's get started.

What is Amazon EC2?

AWS EC2It is a flexible and scalable computing power service provided in the AWS cloud. By using Amazon EC2, you no longer need to invest in upfront hardware, allowing you to develop and deploy applications faster. Additionally, you can start a virtual server with

• the best fit for your needs
• Configure Security and Networking
• manage storage

Learn More: The Complete GuideAmazon EC2

The service also allows for easy scaling up or down to meet changes in demand or popularity, reducing the need for traffic forecasting.

Features of AWS EC2

• EC2 enables you to scale computing capacity up or down as needed without making any changes to your infrastructure.
• You can easily start, stop, or terminate EC2 instances, which allows you to scale up or down as needed.
• EC2 offers a variety of instance types optimized for different use cases, including general-purpose, compute-optimized, memory-optimized, and storage-optimized.
• It also allows you to choose your preferred operating system, including Linux, Windows, and other platforms.
• EC2 provides several security features, such as firewalls, security groups, and access controls, to help protect your data and applications.
• It provides a variety of management options, including a web-based console, command-line interface, and API, allowing users to easily manage their instances.
• EC2 Auto Scaling helps you automatically scale instances in response to changes in demand, helping to maintain application performance while minimizing costs.
• EC2 integrates very easily with other AWS services such as Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and Amazon Elastic Load Balancing to create powerful cloud-based applications.

How AWS EC2 works

Amazon EC2 allows you to launch virtual servers, also known as instances, in the cloud. You can choose from a range of instance types that vary in CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity. You can also launch an instance using an AMI that includes the necessary software and operating system.

Once launched, you can securely access the instance using a key pair consisting of a public key stored in AWS and a private key stored in AWS. EC2 also offers several security features, such as firewalls, security groups, and access controls, to help protect data and applications.

Additionally, you can provision and manage instances through the AWS Management Console, CLI, and API. For command line interface users, two options are available:

• AWS Command Line Interface (CLI): Supports Windows, Mac, and Linux, and provides commands for various AWS products. Check out the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide to get started. For Amazon EC2 commands, see ec2 in the AWS CLI Command Reference.
• AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell: Provides commands for AWS products specifically for those who write scripts in the PowerShell environment. To get started, read the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide. For Amazon EC2 cmdlets, see AWS Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference.

Additionally, Amazon EC2 allows the creation of resources using AWS CloudFormation. You can create JSON or YAML templates that outline your AWS resources. CloudFormation, on the other hand, will provide and configure them for you. You can reuse these templates to create the same resource multiple times across different accounts and regions.

Use Cases for Amazon EC2

hosting environment

EC2 is primarily used for hosting applications, software, and websites in the cloud. You can even host games and easily manage servers as needed. EC2's dynamic and scalable environment allows computing power to scale with the needs of applications, ensuring the highest quality of service to end users. Netflix, Reddit, and Nintendo are good examples of successful EC2 hosting.

Disaster recovery and backup

Enterprises are leveraging EC2 for disaster recovery in both active and passive environments. Thanks to EC2's ability to start quickly in emergency situations, companies can achieve faster failover with minimal application downtime.

high performance computing

HPC needs are growing exponentially. EC2 provides dedicated virtual servers with high-performance networking and computing power for CPU-intensive tasks such as big data analysis. NASA and Pfizer use EC2 for JPL and HPC, respectively.

What is Amazon S3?

AWS S3is a top-tier object storage service that offers exceptional scalability, data protection, security, and speed. Users from different industries and sizes can store and protect their data for a variety of applications such as data lakes, websites, mobile apps, backups, archives, IoT devices and big data analytics. It has administrative features that allow you to customize, organize, and regulate data access to meet your company's needs, organizational goals, and regulatory standards.

read more:Amazon Glacier and S3- Compare

Features of AWS S3

• Amazon S3 is designed to automatically scale and grow as your storage needs increase, making it ideal for businesses of all sizes.
• It stores data in multiple availability zones, ensuring high availability and durability of data.
• AWS S3 provides multiple layers of security, including encryption, access control, and identity management, to keep your data safe and secure.
• It is optimized for high performance, low latency, and high throughput for fast data access.
• You can enjoy a range of storage classes including Standard, Infrequent Access and Glacier to meet different data storage needs and cost requirements.
• Amazon S3Has powerful management features, including version control, lifecycle policies, and cross-region replication, to help you manage and optimize data storage.
• It also integrates with a wide range of AWS services, including Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudFront, etc., making it easy to use with other AWS services.

How does AWS S3 work?

Amazon S3 is a storage service that stores data as objects in buckets. Objects consist of files and associated metadata, and buckets are containers for objects.

To store your data, you create a bucket and upload your data as objects with unique identifiers called keys. S3 provides customizable features such as versioning, which allows you to keep multiple object versions for backup and recovery.

Access to buckets and objects is restricted, and you need to specify permissions using bucket policies, IAM policies, ACLs, and S3 access points.

Use Cases for Amazon S3

backup file system

One of the top applications of Amazon S3 is backup. The storage solution guarantees 99.999999999% durability and ensures that each file is replicated three times across multiple data centers located in different regions. Thus, your important backup files will be safe from human error or natural disasters affecting entire regions.

Create a private local repository

You can leverage Amazon S3 to set up your personal local Git, Yum, or Maven repository. This can be useful when you want to simplify the process and avoid complex scripting. Instead of managing multiple servers, you can keep your master files in the cloud, use an S3 bucket as root, and commit via plugins like Jgit.

Improved file sharing

You can use Amazon S3 as an economical file sharing solution or as a network drive that integrates seamlessly into your environment. You can set ACL policies to allow specific users to access buckets and upload files for efficient collaboration. The second use case is slightly more complicated. It involves mounting an Amazon S3 bucket as a Windows external drive through tools such as MSP360 Drive for Amazon S3.

Can AWS S3 be used with AWS EC2?

Amazon S3 can be combined with EC2 for better data storage results. Amazon S3 is a fast, cheap, and reliable storage solution for web-scale computing. It allows you to store and retrieve data from anywhere on the web or in Amazon EC2. You can store data objects redundantly across multiple devices and facilities. This allows multiple clients or threads to have concurrent read or write access. This redundancy ensures fast and reliable recovery from instance or application failures.

Interestingly, Amazon EC2 stores AMIs on Amazon S3 to launch instances. If one instance fails, you can use the stored AMI to quickly spin up another instance, ensuring rapid recovery and uninterrupted business operations.

In addition, Amazon EC2 stores data volume backups or snapshots on Amazon S3 for fast and reliable recovery in the event of system failure. You can use these snapshots as a baseline to create new data volumes or expand the size of existing data volumes, and to move data volumes across multiple Availability Zones for highly scalable data usage.

Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon S3: What's the Difference?

Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 may not always be used together. Amazon S3 is not suitable for storing constantly changing website data, such as server-side session data. Also, S3 bucket backups only transfer data stored in those buckets, so additional backup methods are required to back up data stored in EC2 instances. Apart from that, here are some differences between AWS EC2 and AWS S3.

Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon S3: Which one is right for the enterprise?

Deciding between Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 depends on the specific needs of your business. Amazon EC2 is ideal for running applications and services on virtual machines. At the same time, Amazon S3 is designed for storing and retrieving any amount of data, such as files, documents, images, videos, and backups.

If your business needs to host web servers or databases, or provide scalable computing power in the cloud, Amazon EC2 is the right choice. On the other hand, if your business needs to store large amounts of data, access it from anywhere on the web, or want to easily expand storage capacity, then Amazon S3 will be the right choice.

It is important to note that these two services can be used together to build highly scalable and fault-tolerant applications. Therefore, businesses can combine Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 to fulfill their specific requirements. Ultimately, the decision between Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 should be based on your business needs and specific use case.

Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon S3: Which Is Right for Your Career?

Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 are both popular AWS services, but they serve different purposes and are used for different workloads. To determine which service is right for your career, you should consider your specific job role and workload type.

Role Types and Team Profiles for AWS EC2

• Border Network Team
• Network Control Plane Team
• Security Operations Team
• Business Intelligence Engineer
• Safety Engineer
• software development manager

Role Types and Team Profiles for AWS S3

• Software Development Engineer
• Technical Project Manager
• System Engineer/Administrator
• product manager

summarize

I hope this blog has given you a better understanding of how Amazon EC2 compares to Amazon S3. However, if you want to learn more about AWS EC2 and AWS S3, the best way to learn about them is through the AWS Hands-on Labs and Sandboxes.

WhizlabsBrings 42 hands-on labs to Amazon EC2 and 38 hands-on labs to S3. All of these labs are directed and purpose-built by domain experts. By working with these labs, you can put your theory into practice and understand the nuances of the real world. Another way is to try usingsandboxThe .sandbox lets you work and use EC2 and S3 tools in an isolated AWS environment. You can create, delete, update Auto Scaling groups, and host static websites and version control.

Want to learn more about AWS tools? Or looking to advance your skills with popular AWS cloud technologies? contact us.