Launching your first cloud can be intimidating, but a few good pointers can be of immense help here. Amazon actually lists a wide array of EC2 best practices for cloud users and administrators, which is more of a checklist to help them gain the maximum benefit from the service.

Here are some more.

Amazon EC2 best practices

The more you launch and configure the instances, the more you will get acquainted with the Amazon cloud platform and find out how easy it is to work with AWS. That said, there are a few key points to keep in mind when using EC2, when it comes to general use of the service.

Namely:

• Stop you instances when not in use. This one is evidently the most important consideration, as it will help you save up on costs and not rake up a huge AWS bill.
• Use tags to identify your EC2 instances. It is a good practice that should be followed at all times.
• Speaking of which, make sure you monitor your instances at all times. The EC2 Status and Health Check tabs are very helpful for this.
• Ensure you are up to speed with your current limits for Amazon EC2. Not just that, but have a plan to request any limit increases in advance at times when you need them.
• Back up regularly. Use EBS snapshots to back up your EBS volumes, and also create an AMI from your instance to save the configuration. This also comes in handy for use as a template for launching future instances.
• Make it a point to regularly test restore processes, along with instance recovery.
• Actively monitor, and respond to events.
• Use separate Amazon EBS volumes for the operating system versus your data.
• Design your applications to handle dynamic IP addressing when your instance restarts. This will save you a lot of trouble.
• It is always a good idea to use a standard and frequently deployed set of AMIs. That is because these are tried and tested thoroughly by Amazon and other AWS users.

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