EC2 is essentially a virtual server in the cloud. It can be available within minutes after setting it up. Compare that to how long it would take to provision and prepare a physical server in your own datacenter. Even ordering it and awaiting initial configuration and shipment can take weeks. General knowledge about EC2 is one of the key categories in the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam.

One of the critical categories of questions for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam is billing. It’s estimated to be from 12% to 20% of the exam. Every service and support plan have their own pricing models, and I’ll try to clarify all of these here. This is a large topic, so I’m going to split this over three articles. I don’t believe the exams will ask about specific prices, as these can always change. But the important thing is understanding the relative pricing, so you could be able to make intelligent cost analysis decisions.