Amazon EC2 Reviews

We use EC2 for test and dev environments.

EC2 has the typical advantages of using the cloud. It's easy to provision and set up.

I would like to see more variety in the operating system images used to create test environments in EC2. There should be more versions and releases. Sometimes, you want to test an update from an old release to a higher version, but you can’t do that with the new images available. You have to use your own.

I have used EC2 for three or four years.

Amazon EC2 is stable.

EC2 is scalable. There is an auto-scale setting in the configuration.

I've never had to use tech support. I think most of the documentation is adequate.

Setting up EC2 is straightforward. It takes a few minutes, and you can do it by yourself.

Pricing is based on consumption, so when we don't want to use it, we just turn it off. The expense is negligible.

We pay for a monthly license. The price is fair.

I would rate Amazon EC2 nine out of 10.

EC2 and VPC are two services that are quite interconnected. EC2 is the Amazon console that uses the host resources in the data centers to launch servers,  instances and services with VPC as the networking part. 

This is a great solution that's stable, scalable and simple to implement. 

We sometimes need to change the resource service levels, whether it's to expand or contract. Amazon doesn't offer that option so the way things work now, changes can't be made without scheduling downtime or preventing users from using the service for a period while changes are made. I would like to see servers upgrading or downgrading on the fly without the end user even noticing the change. It would be life-changing for us. 

I've been using this solution for about four years. 

The solution is very stable. There are instances storage servers distributed on multiple hosts in the data centers and even if there's a failure we're unaware of the disruptions. The solution is stable 24/7, 365 days a year, and we know we can rely on it.

The solution is scalable, we have over 1,000 users. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. 

Licensing costs are paid monthly for the whole package. That includes the resources that the server is utilizing, plus the operating system along with any database license, such as Microsoft SQL, that you are using. It's quite expensive.

This is an amazing solution although it's not suitable for every company.
They lose one point because the price is quite high so I rate this product nine out of 10. 

Amazon EC2 is used if you are looking for a process serving cloud service.

The best features of Amazon EC2 are its high performance and security.

Amazon EC2 could improve its dashboards and UI, they need to be more user-friendly.

I have been using Amazon EC2 for approximately five years.

Amazon EC2 is a stable and reliable

Amazon EC2 is a highly scalable solution.

We have over 100 users using this solution and we have plans to increase the usage.

The support from Amazon EC2 is good.

The initial setup of Amazon EC2 is straightforward. It only took us a few minutes to complete.

We did the implementation ourselves.

We do not need a special team to implement this solution. 

Amazon EC2 has a pay-as-you-use cost model.

Amazon EC2 is the right choice for cloud services processing.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Amazon EC2 a nine out of ten.

I mainly use EC2 for hosting our application as well as some of the user data caching mechanism and mailing services.

EC2 could be improved with easier migration.

I've been using EC2 for around eighteen months.

I'm satisfied with the stability of EC2.

EC2 is scalable.

Amazon's technical support is great, we have no issues with it.

The initial setup wa straightforward and took around two weeks before configuration.

EC2 is secure and stable, and we have no complaints about it on AWS. However, Microsoft is more helpful with our go-to-market strategy, which motivates us to use Azure more than EC2. I would rate EC2 as ten out of ten.

We have a couple of primary use cases. We have an internal password server that we use for one of them. The other use case is file transfer. We have set apart an in-house SFTP process and it is all there. ETL enterprise trends and the data transformation process also run on one of the servers.

We have databases that run on one of the EC2 docs. We have a direct database that runs AWS Postgres. We don't separate that, but we do have a part of the business that runs on the server as well.

My company has a couple of servers on EC2 that we manage across defined regions. We have roughly 11 servers currently in operation for live production services and around 5 staging environments.

We have Windows and Linux servers. I think there are less Linux servers than Windows at present. I would say there are two to three Linux centers and the rest are Windows. That's what we use. Of course we have detailed information of what we do but I can't go into too much information because our company is public.

I wouldn't say it's improved our company, to be honest, because sometimes we do have issues with it. Because as much as the increase in data storage is good it is also a problem. That is because of the cost. But I would say it's good because it helps us. I would say AWS generally helps us. I'm going to talk a bit about other AWS applications, because it's kind of difficult to just dwell on EC2 and not talk about other applications since we do not just use EC2.

We also use Cloud HSM. Cloud HSM is easy to install. It has really helped us in regard to security. Now we can have our own key to encrypt our stuff. And having EC2 available is also very useful because sometimes with the configuration of Amazon stuff, if it's not done on Amazon Linux servers, it gets pretty difficult to wiggle your way around it. But with the Amazon Linux server, it's just on the fly because of their image. The fact that Amazon has their own image really helps to make your job easier and faster to configure and save.

The features that I have found most valuable are that we can increase the storage of EC2. This is very helpful because sometimes when it comes to data transformation in far transfer, it gets really big because of the number of clients we have. Then we have to find a way to sort out archive data, etc.

It really makes it easy to either transfer data as an S3 bucket or increase the drive storage on the server. That is really useful. Another thing I really like about the services is that you can install Trend Micro Security on it. Most of the AWS services have gone with Trend Micro Security, which you can get installed on it. It helps to protect the servers and gives you that additional level of security.

In terms of what could be improved, it depends on the server. I would say they are so much better these days with updates, especially when it comes to Linux servers and there are so many material updates. AWS is really on the ball with ensuring that security practices are there, etc.. Windows is just the same old Windows. The problem is not Amazon but Windows itself.

I have been using Amazon EC2 for five years.

It is pretty stable regarding downtime. We probably get one downtime a month, for a few seconds up to a minute, but it rarely happens. The helpful thing about having EC2 instances is that you have CloudWatch. So it gives you logs of your downtime or the off time of the server. It gives you all that information if something is gone wrong with your server and you can fix it.

Amazon EC2 is highly scalable. But one thing I found that may be an issue is moving from one instance type to another. Because I found that you can't just switch instances. It seems you're limited to a certain category depending on the one you initially started with. But I'm not a hundred percent sure because I've only found that issue on one server and I know we've switched instance types before. Maybe just with that particular server I can't switch out of the categories of instances. I have to remain on the I's and I can't go to the M's or the C's or anything like that. I don't know if it's specific to that instance, though.

I don't know how many users are on it in total. I'd say less than 10. Most of them do data integration and team reporting, sometimes IT administration, and security, which is my team.

I haven't used technical support for EC2. I've used it for other AWS solutions, but not for EC2.

I am familiar with Azure servers and I find them more expensive than EC2. I find them quite difficult to use and they are not as scalable as AWS. They are not even that robust. I don't like Azure that much. The setup is also confusing.

The initial setup is actually very straightforward because if you follow the guidance given on AWS you can get everything done pretty quickly without any problems. The only way it gets difficult is when you try to configure things your own way. Of course, sometimes you need to do things your own way because you have certain requirements for that particular server. Then it could get complex.

It depends, again, on the server. If it's a Windows server it is very easy, like on the fly. If it is Linux, you might find it difficult to install some AM-AWS services. So that configuration may be tough. But if you're using the basic, it's pretty easy. 

But then you need to know what each of the instances are. You need to know what you're using it for and how these instance sites apply to your organization. You need an understanding of the basic information about AWS before you can just configure it. It's not like every person can just come in and configure it. It's easy to configure, but then it may not be what you need it for.

It is project dependent. Sometimes we follow the basic strategies. Sometimes we have to consider it based on the particular project which we're working on at the time.

We usually configure it ourselves in-house.

I think Amazon EC2 has fair pricing. I actually think the pricing is manageable. I have Free Tiers, as well. You can get on the Free Tier pricing and they just charge you for data storage.

My advice to anyone considering this is that they need to evaluate if it's necessary to have EC2, or if it is cheaper to run something in-house. It's very important because you don't want to throw money at cloud service providers if you can do it yourself. But the good thing is that cloud service providers take care of all the infrastructure and everything so you don't have to worry about that. It's nice to also have someone else accountable for your every structure rather than employing so many people at your job to do the work. That's the only good side about it. It is easy to learn Azure and all those GCP products.

On a scale of one to ten I would give Amazon EC2 an 8. 

I definitely would not give it a 10. It's not the best of the best because we still have issues with downtime. We still have issues with the cost of storage, with all these different instance styles, and how much it costs. They cost an arm and a leg the higher you go. Sometimes performance is an issue because of the kind of incidents that you have. That is why it cannot be a nine or a 10. But because CloudWatch is embedded in it, it lets you know when your system fails by sending you an email. It also has Trend Micro included. I think you may have to pay for it, am not sure. So it has benefits if you use it with other AWS services.

We have a lot of use cases. Some of our customers have deployed their SIEM solutions on EC2 instances. Our company has also deployed a couple of business applications on EC2 instances.

The product is very mature and organized. I haven't had any issues with any of the AWS services.

The GUI used to deploy EC2 must be improved. Azure’s GUI is more guided compared to EC2’s GUI.

I have been using the solution for five to six years.

If I buy only one EC2 instance with fewer resources but use it for many resources without putting it in the Auto Scaling group, the tool will not be stable. If I deploy the solution according to AWS's best practices and recommendations, it will be scalable. If I deploy it under Load Balancing or Auto Scaling, it will automatically go up and down as per the demand, and we have to pay for only what we use. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

The product is very scalable. The scalability depends on the deployment architecture. Our clients who have big infrastructures are using the product. They have multiple accounts. My own organization is also using the solution. We are planning to increase the usage.

The support is very quick. Everything is guided pretty well. AWS’s support is always very good.

The initial setup is easy. The product is cloud-based. If I am buying the solution for many CPUs, it might take two to three hours. It will take four to five hours if I'm deploying with fewer resources.

The deployment process is pretty simple. We can go to the EC2 dashboard and create an instance if we have an AWS account subscription. The product would guide us with the help of dropdowns. It will ask us how many resources we want, how much storage we want, which security group we want to integrate, and what kind of Access Control we want to integrate. There’ll be a lot of questions, and we just need to select the answers.

EC2 is like a virtual machine. It doesn’t require a whole team for deployment. The number of people required for deployment depends on the complexity of the deployment.

We need to pay a monthly license fee for the product. The pricing also depends on the type of instance we use. Reserved Instances are dedicated to a single user and cost more. If we use Spot Instances, we must pay for what we use. It will be added to our monthly bill. It is not an expensive solution.

Azure uses Sentinel, which is dedicated to security information and event management. However, AWS does not have a centralized solution for SIEM. AWS is using security hubs like GuardDuty, but it is for different purposes. We have to log in to these dashboards separately. AWS needs to have a centralized SIEM solution.

People who want to use the product must consider the future predictability and decide whether they need a single EC2 instance or a Load Balancing or Auto Scaling infrastructure deployment and deploy accordingly.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use the solution to host our backend servers.

The most valuable feature is autoscaling.

I would like the ability to connect SMS to EC2 using the VPC endpoint. Currently in the autoscaling process if we have multiple issues we are not able to connect some of the VPC through the SMS.

I have used the solution for two years.

The solution is very stable.

The solution has an autoscaling feature making it very scalable.

The technical support is good.

The initial setup is straightforward. We follow an internal document for deployment and it takes around 15 minutes to implement.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We are using a pay-as-you-go model.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

We require two people for deployment and maintenance.

I recommend the solution to others.

We used it for one of the supply chain products.

Its ease of use is valuable.

Its price can be reduced. I don't see any other area for improvement.

I've been using Amazon EC2 for a couple of years.

It's stable.

It's scalable. In our organization, almost all people are using it. There are about 1,000 people. We have plans to increase its usage.

I've used their technical support, and I am satisfied with their support.

It's worth the investment.

It's expensive, and it could be cheaper.

I'd recommend Amazon EC2 to others. I'd rate it an eight out of ten.