Understanding IaaS: A Case Study of AWS EC2

.What is IaaS?

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a cloud computing model where a provider rents out computing resources such as virtual servers, storage and networking over the internet. Instead of buying and maintaining physical hardware, you rent what you need and pay only for what you use.

IaaS sits at the base of the cloud stack, alongside PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS Software as a Service. With IaaS, the provider manages the physical hardware, while you manage the operating system, software and applications.

.Why use IaaS?

• Pay as you go: no upfront hardware costs.
• Scalable: add or remove resources in minutes. -Flexible: you control the OS and software. -Reliable: providers run data centres around the world.

.Case study: Amazon EC2

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is AWS's core IaaS service. It lets you launch virtual servers, called instances, in the cloud.

.Key concepts

EC2: A virtual machine you rent from AWS. You choose its size, operating system and region.

.SSH Secure Shell: A secure way to log into your server remotely from your own computer's terminal using a key pair. For example: ssh -i mykey.pem ec2-user@<public-ip>

.Apache: A popular open-source web server. Once installed on the instance, it serves web pages to anyone who visits the server's public IP address.

.Budget alert: An AWS Budgets feature that emails you when your spending reaches a limit you set. It helps you avoid surprise bills.

.Typical workflow

1. Create an AWS account and sign in.
2. Launch an EC2 instance, choosing a free-tier eligible type.
3. Create a key pair and configure the security group to allow SSH (port 22) and HTTP (port 80).
4. Connect to the instance using SSH.
5. Install Apache: sudo yum install httpd -y, then sudo systemctl start httpd.
6. Visit the instance's public IP in a browser to see the web server running.
7. Set up a budget alert in AWS Budgets to monitor costs.

.My experience

While working on this assignment, I started registering an AWS account, but the signup process required payment card verification, which I could not complete. This showed me that even though IaaS removes the need for physical hardware, getting started still involves account verification, security configuration and cost management.

Pros and cons

.Pros: low cost to start, fast deployment, scalability, full control over the environment.

.Cons: you are responsible for securing and maintaining the OS, costs can grow if resources are left running, and there is a learning curve.

.Conclusion

IaaS, as shown by AWS EC2, changed how individuals and companies run infrastructure. It replaces expensive hardware with flexible, on-demand servers. Understanding concepts like SSH, web servers and budget monitoring is the foundation for using the cloud safely and efficiently.