This is a partial demo of a much more specific experience.

Amazon EC2 Provisioning Guide

Prerequisites

• An AWS account
• IAM user with EC2 permissions
• AWS CLI installed (optional)

Step 1: Sign in to AWS Console

1. Navigate to https://aws.amazon.com/console/
2. Sign in with your credentials
3. Select your preferred region from the top-right dropdown

Step 2: Launch an EC2 Instance

Navigate to EC2 Dashboard

1. Search for "EC2" in the AWS services search bar
2. Click on "EC2" to open the EC2 Dashboard
3. Click "Launch Instance"

Configure Instance Settings

Name and Tags

• Enter a name for your instance (e.g., "my-web-server")

Application and OS Images (AMI)

• Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
• Common options:
  • Amazon Linux 2023
  • Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS
  • Windows Server 2022

Instance Type

• Select instance type based on your needs
• Example: t2.micro (free tier eligible)
• Consider CPU, memory, and network requirements

Key Pair (Login)

• Create a new key pair or select existing one
• Download and save the .pem file securely
• Required for SSH/RDP access

Network Settings

• Choose VPC (or use default)
• Select subnet (or auto-assign)
• Enable "Auto-assign Public IP" if needed
• Configure Security Group:
  • SSH (port 22) for Linux
  • RDP (port 3389) for Windows
  • HTTP (port 80) / HTTPS (port 443) for web servers

Configure Storage

• Set root volume size (default is usually 8 GB)
• Choose volume type (gp3, gp2, io1, etc.)
• Enable encryption if required

Advanced Details (Optional)

• IAM instance profile
• User data scripts
• Monitoring options

Step 3: Launch Instance

1. Review your configuration
2. Click "Launch Instance"
3. Wait for instance state to show "Running"

Step 4: Connect to Your Instance

For Linux Instances (SSH)

chmod 400 your-key-pair.pem
ssh -i your-key-pair.pem ec2-user@your-public-ip

For Windows Instances (RDP)

1. Click "Connect" in EC2 console
2. Select "RDP client"
3. Download remote desktop file
4. Get password using your key pair
5. Connect using Remote Desktop Connection

Step 5: Basic Instance Management

View Instance Details

• Select instance in EC2 console
• View details, monitoring, and networking tabs

Start/Stop/Terminate

• Select instance
• Choose "Instance state" dropdown
• Select desired action

Create AMI (Backup)

• Select instance
• Actions → Image and templates → Create image

Security Best Practices

• Use strong security group rules (least privilege)
• Regularly update and patch your instances
• Use IAM roles instead of storing credentials
• Enable CloudWatch monitoring
• Use encrypted EBS volumes
• Regularly backup using AMIs or snapshots

Cost Optimization Tips

• Use appropriate instance types
• Stop instances when not in use
• Use Reserved Instances or Savings Plans for long-term workloads
• Set up billing alerts
• Use auto-scaling for variable workloads

Next Steps

• Configure your application on the instance
• Set up elastic IPs for static addressing
• Configure load balancers for high availability
• Implement auto-scaling groups
• Set up CloudWatch alarms and monitoring