This module focuses on storage and compute services in the cloud, which are fundamental for real-world cloud applications.
You’ll learn in detail about:
- Amazon S3 → Object storage
- Amazon EBS → Block storage for EC2
- Amazon EC2 → Virtual machines for compute
- Object storage service that stores data as objects in buckets.
- Scalable, durable, and accessible globally.
- Durability: 11 nines (99.999999999%)
- Scalability: Virtually unlimited storage
- Access: Web, SDK, CLI
- Cost: Pay only for what you store and transfer
- Storing images, videos, and backups
- Hosting static websites
- Data lake for analytics
- Like Google Drive, but for developers and large-scale applications
- A company like Instagram stores user-uploaded photos/videos in S3.
- Block storage attached to a single EC2 instance.
- Acts like a hard disk for your virtual machine.
- Persistence: Data remains even if EC2 stops (unless deleted)
- High IOPS: SSD/HDD options available
- Backup: Snapshots to S3
- Availability: Limited to one Availability Zone
- Hosting databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL)
- Boot volume for EC2 instances
- Applications requiring consistent performance
- Like the C: drive of your laptop
- EC2 running a MySQL database stores its database files on EBS for durability.
- Virtual server (VM) in the cloud for compute.
- Allows you to run applications without owning physical hardware.
- Elastic: Start, stop, resize instances anytime
- Variety of instance types: General-purpose, compute-optimized, memory-optimized, GPU
- Attach storage: EBS, Instance Store
- Security: IAM roles, Security Groups, NACLs
- Networking: Launch inside VPC
- Web servers, databases, batch processing
- Microservices deployed via containers
- Machine learning workloads using GPU instances
- Like renting a computer in a cyber café – choose power, pay only while using it
- Flipkart launches hundreds of EC2 instances during Big Billion Day sale to handle high traffic, then scales back after the sale.
| Feature | S3 | EBS | EC2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Object storage | Block storage | Compute (VM) |
| Attached To | Anywhere (via API) | Single EC2 instance | N/A |
| Persistence | Highly durable | Persistent | Depends on EBS/instance store |
| Scaling | Unlimited | Manual resize | Auto Scaling possible |
| Use Case | Backups, static files | Databases, boot volumes | Web servers, apps |
| Analogy | Google Drive | Hard disk of a laptop | Cyber café computer |