Amazon extended its distributed computing and storage platform by adding "Elastic IPs" to the offering.  Elastic IPs provide static IP addresses for server instances hosted at Amazon. In effect, it is now easier to host high-performance websites and web applications using the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service, which provides a global network of servers for hire. The system is typically said to provide computing “in the cloud,” referring to its availability over the Internet and the traditional use of a cloud graphic for the representation of a publicly available network in technical illustrations.

According to Amazon’s announcement, “elastic IP addresses and the ability to launch compute instances in multiple Availability Zones (…) enable Amazon EC2 developers to build even more powerful and fault resilient applications in the cloud. These new capabilities enable developers to achieve greater reliability and redundancy for all of their applications, including hosting websites.”

EC2 differs from traditional dedicated server and VPS services in several ways.   Customers of EC2 rent “instances” – virtual machines with differing amounts of disk space and memory. The system uses Xen virtualization, and instances can be created and shut down on demand -- this is the "elastic" part. Another difference is the billing method: instead of paying a fixed monthly fee, with EC2 you pay only for the transfer and storage of data, per gygabyte.

The small instance is the "equivalent of a system with 1.7 GB of memory, 1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit), 160 GB of instance storage, 32-bit platform." On the other side of the spectrum, there is the extra large instance, "equivalent of a system with 15 GB of memory, 8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of instance storage, 64-bit platform."

S3 (Simple Storage Service) was the first Amazon service that challenged the business model of hosting companies by allowing the secure storage of unlimited amount of data, using its existing huge and well-developed network infrastructure. Again, payment was required only for the data that is actually hosted. Now it seems that Amazon is using its massive network infrastructure, which stemmed out of its efforts to serve the Amazon.com online store website flawlessly across the world, in order to tread further into the territory of traditional web hosting.

While Amazon Web Services offer a number of innovations, they are still the domain of highly skilled professionals. However, third-party software and services are already emerging around Amazon EC2 and S3, with the goal of serving as an intermediary and closing the gap between the consumer and the Amazon computing services. Hosting companies face tough competition, and will have to find ways to make people see traditional hosting services as the better choice.

Copyright © 2008 DevStart, Inc. Permission is required to use the material on this page.