How do you monitor an EC2 instance?

With the Amazon CloudWatch agent installed on the instance: it collects detailed metrics (CPU, memory, disk) and logs, and centralizes them for dashboards, alerts and diagnosis. It is the foundation of an operation that detects problems before they impact the business.

What is NVMe used for in an EC2 instance?

Local NVMe storage delivers very high IOPS and low latency. A typical use is accelerating databases —for example SQL Server— by using it as a cache layer, noticeably improving the response time of heavy queries.

How do you reduce EC2 cost?

By right-sizing instances, using Savings Plans for stable workloads and Spot for interruption-tolerant ones. Good FinOps usually cuts compute spend significantly.

← Technical glossary AWS Technologies

Amazon EC2 — Elastic Compute Cloud

Virtual servers in the cloud that spin up in minutes and scale with demand. The flexible compute that runs millions of applications.

What is Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) provides compute capacity in the cloud as instances: virtual servers you launch in minutes, with the operating system, size and power you need. You pay for usage time, and you can shut down or scale with demand instead of buying hardware that sits underused.

There are instance families optimized for different profiles —compute, memory, storage or GPU— and purchasing models (On-Demand, Savings Plans, Spot) that change cost dramatically. Some families include very fast local NVMe storage: a typical case is using that NVMe as a cache layer to accelerate SQL Server database performance, reducing the latency of the most demanding queries.

To operate EC2 with confidence, each instance can run the Amazon CloudWatch agent, which collects detailed metrics and logs —CPU, memory, disk, processes— and centralizes them for monitoring, alerting and diagnosis. That observability is what separates a server that "runs" from an operation that detects and resolves problems before the business feels them.

Use cases

What Amazon EC2 is used for

Enterprise applications

Run business systems, ERPs and legacy applications migrated from on-premise.

SQL Server accelerated with NVMe

Instances with local NVMe as a cache to improve the performance of demanding SQL Server databases.

Variable workloads

Auto-scale for spikes (campaigns, month-end) and reduce capacity when demand drops.

Monitoring with CloudWatch

CloudWatch agent for centralized metrics and logs, alerting and proactive diagnosis.

How Caleidos implements it

Amazon EC2 with an AWS partner

At Caleidos we migrate workloads to EC2 with the right instance family, instrument monitoring with the CloudWatch agent from day one, and optimize the purchasing model (Savings Plans, Spot) to reduce spend without sacrificing performance. Where it fits, we help you modernize toward containers or serverless.

Explore AWS Migration →

Frequently asked questions

How do you monitor an EC2 instance?: With the Amazon CloudWatch agent installed on the instance: it collects detailed metrics (CPU, memory, disk) and logs, and centralizes them for dashboards, alerts and diagnosis. It is the foundation of an operation that detects problems before they impact the business.
What is NVMe used for in an EC2 instance?: Local NVMe storage delivers very high IOPS and low latency. A typical use is accelerating databases —for example SQL Server— by using it as a cache layer, noticeably improving the response time of heavy queries.
How do you reduce EC2 cost?: By right-sizing instances, using Savings Plans for stable workloads and Spot for interruption-tolerant ones. Good FinOps usually cuts compute spend significantly.

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