Lesson 1-AWS SysOps Administrator Associate

EC2 Instance Type Management

Learn how to change EC2 instance types and understand the requirements for resizing your instances to meet changing workload demands.

9 Topics

4 Quiz Questions

50 XP Reward

What You'll Learn

Introduction to EC2 Instance Flexibility

One of the powerful features of Amazon EC2 is the ability to change your instance type after launch. As your application's needs evolve—whether you need more CPU power, memory, or network capacity—you can resize your instance without losing your data or configuration. This flexibility is essential for CloudOps engineers who need to optimize costs while ensuring performance.

Key Point

EC2 instances can be resized after launch, allowing you to adapt to changing workload requirements.

Vocabulary

Key Terms

A combination of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity that defines the hardware specifications of an EC2 instance

An EC2 instance that uses Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) as its root device, allowing data to persist independently of the instance

Temporary block-level storage physically attached to the host computer, which is lost when the instance stops

Critical Requirement

Changing instance type ONLY works for EBS-backed instances. Instance store-backed instances cannot be resized because stopping them would result in data loss.

How to Change EC2 Instance Type

Stop the Instance

You must stop your running instance before changing its type. Go to the EC2 console, select your instance, and choose 'Instance State' → 'Stop Instance'. Wait for the state to change to 'Stopped'.

Access Instance Settings

With the instance selected, go to 'Actions' → 'Instance Settings' → 'Change Instance Type'. This option is only available when the instance is in a stopped state.

Select New Instance Type

Choose your desired instance type from the dropdown menu. Consider your workload requirements for CPU, memory, and network performance when making your selection.

Start the Instance

After applying the change, start your instance. It will now run with the new instance type specifications. Your data, IP configurations, and security settings remain intact.

Comparison

Common Instance Type Families

	Family	Use Case	Key Features
T-series	General purpose, burstable	Web servers, dev environments	CPU credits for bursting
M-series	General purpose, balanced	Application servers, gaming	Balanced compute/memory
C-series	Compute optimized	Batch processing, HPC	High-performance processors
R-series	Memory optimized	In-memory caching, databases	High memory-to-CPU ratio

Choose the right family based on your application's primary resource requirements

Downtime Consideration

Changing instance type requires stopping the instance, which means your application will experience downtime. Plan this operation during maintenance windows or use load balancing with multiple instances for high availability.

Scaling Up a Web Server

Problem

Your t2.micro web server is experiencing high CPU utilization during peak hours. You need to upgrade to handle more traffic.

Solution

1. Schedule maintenance window 2. Stop the t2.micro instance 3. Change instance type to t2.small or t2.medium 4. Start the instance 5. Verify application is running correctly

Why This Works

Upgrading from t2.micro to t2.small doubles your memory (1GB to 2GB), allowing your application to handle more concurrent connections without performance degradation.

Cost Optimization Tip

Remember that larger instance types cost more per hour. You can also scale down during low-traffic periods to save costs. Consider using AWS Instance Scheduler to automate this process.

Reflection

Pause & Ponder

How would you handle the need to change instance types in a production environment with zero downtime requirements?

•Think about load balancing across multiple instances
•Consider using Auto Scaling Groups for seamless transitions
•How might blue-green deployments help?

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