AWS EC2 fundamentals

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provides virtual machines called instances. Four choices define the machine you launch:

• AMI — operating-system image used for boot.
• Instance type — CPU and memory shape.
• Network — VPC, subnet, security groups, and optional public address.
• EBS volume — persistent block storage attached to the instance.

This lab uses a real AWS account with strict safety controls. Your effective access is AdministratorAccess capped by a permissions boundary and an AWS Organizations SCP.

Lab limits

• Region: us-east-1
• Instance type: t3.micro
• Maximum active instances: one
• AMI: approved Amazon Linux 2023 image
• Metadata: IMDSv2 required
• Storage: unencrypted gp3, 20 GiB (policy caps volumes at 20 GiB)
• No IAM changes, Elastic IP, NAT Gateway, snapshots, or custom AMIs

Lifecycle

AMI + instance type + network + EBS
                ↓
             launch
                ↓
        pending → running
                ↓
        stopping → stopped
                ↓
     shutting-down → terminated

You will verify your identity, launch one instance, inspect its configuration, answer a quiz, and terminate the instance. Platform cleanup remains a safety net; you should still learn to clean up resources yourself.