By Royal Proclamation of PERNy the Magnanimous, First of Her Name, Queen of the Wretched, Duchess of the Most Perfectly Centered Divs Across All Known Libraries, and The Undisputed Paragon of Humility in all known Universe
Today, We graced the establishment that goes by the name of - "Panera Bread". We consumed their chicken noodle soup. Our digestive flames have been extinguished and inner peace tentatively reinstated. And because of this rare cosmic alignment, We magnanimously gift you — yes, you — one of the more positive pieces of literature We have produced. Cherish it, peasants!
Our royal kingdom stands upon four ancient pillars.
- PostgreSQL, the Keeper of Ledgers.
- Express, the chamberlain who bears Our decrees.
- React, your radiant Queen herself, is the face the peasants behold and worship.
- And oh... ya... Node.js - the wretched, who handles matters beneath Our concern (We have tried, on multiple occasions, to have Node reassigned to the royal stables but without success 😒).
We simply DO NOT understand why the peasants, the noblemen, and even the occasional foreign dignitary speak of Node with such high... regard (retching sounds). We find it absolutely horrifying!
Our vigil is eternal: one eye upon Node, lest it disgrace Us again; one eye upon Cursor's token count, which draineth at an alarming rate; and one eye upon the free tier — yes, We are aware that is three eyes. We are a Queen. We manage.
Word reached Us that We have been inducted into the AWS Builders Program (In your face! Node).
Hence we allowed our amazingness to grace the court to appoint the AWS noblemen.
We have decreed: We graciously allocate today for EC2. Which is an extraordinary privilege. Do not let it go to your head, EC2!
A note for the learned scholars of the court: We are aware that this proclamation barely scratches the surface of EC2. This is intentional. We are a Queen, not an AWS documentation page.
EC2 — Lord of Eternal Billing.
Many a civilization has crumbled beneath his invoices.
He sleepeth not. He stoppeth not. He billeth without mercy.
The wretched Node and EC2 are thick as thieves. This is the reason We have graciously decided to befriend him. After all, EC2 bends his knees to Us (NOT the Node!)
EC2, ever eager to impress, introduced Us to his... family. We are always gracious.
The T Family — General Purpose
Us: "How wonderfully thrifty. t3.micro, especially — so affordable, so... puny. We admire the courage it takes to exist!"
(We would sooner host Our royal portfolio on a potato.)
The M Family — Also General Purpose
Us: "The M family! Balanced, We are told. Memory and compute, in equal measure. How... mediocrely balanced."
(Balanced, my a**! The participation trophy of instance types.)
The C Family — Compute Optimized. We straightened slightly.
Us: "High performance processors."
(This one may actually be useful. We said nothing. We have a reputation to maintain.)
The R Family — Memory Optimized
Us: "You... hold a great deal. Must be lovely for you." We gestured vaguely at their RAM.
(Hoarding, We believe, is the clinical term)
The P Family — GPU Instances (for ML/AI workloads)
Us: "Fascinating work. And how is... all of that going for you?"
(Quite frankly we do not understand a lick of their work)
The I Family — Storage Optimized
Us: "Fast local storage, you say? Very high I/O"
(We are bored. We move on.)
Bare Metal
Us: "Direct hardware access, you say?... How barbaric."
(We took one small step backward. For posture reasons.)
EC2, presented Us with a lavish spread of turkey legs, aged wine, imported cheeses. We ate, made merry.
And then, dabbing his mouth with a silk napkin, he slid a parchment across the table.
Pricing Models
On-Demand Pricing - Lord EC2 showed all of his 32 gold teeth and said, "No commitment. Full price. Pay for what you use, when you use it."
We opened Our mouth. A discreet cough from Lord Bash (the hand of the Queen). We closed Our royal mouth.
Lord EC2 looked non-plussed.
Reserved Instances - Lord EC2 smiled. One to three years. Committed upfront. Up to 72% off On-Demand pricing.
Lord Bash's pen did not lift — his pre-arranged signal of approval.
We waved Our hand disinterestedly at EC2. "We accept."
(We want to defeat Node but not at the cost of Our coffers! No way, Jose! We aren’t the AOL company!)
EC2 refilled Our wine glass. We smiled back with our full set of teeth.
Spot Instances EC2 leaned in. Up to 90% off. Incredible savings. We were rapt.
"And it can be reclaimed," he added delicately, "with two minutes notice."
A silence.
Us: "We do not understand. Why would the farmers not simply... purchase an Availability Zone? We hear us-east-1 is lovely this time of year."
Lord Bash spit out his wine.
The negotiations were finally over.
Security Groups
Security Groups were announced into court. Knights with shining armor. We almost forget our own amazingness for a brief minute there!
They kneeled before Us. Lord EC2 spoke about their inbound/outbound rules, protocols, ports.
We were just admiring Our view.
Hey! We could perhaps get Node barred from Our kingdom! Definitely liking these knights more and more!
AMI
EC2 cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, the AMIs are stored in S3—" We raised Our hand. "We are aware. We are aware of everything. Always." A pause. "Lord Bash, however, appears to be struggling. Lord EC2, from the beginning. What are AMIs?" We gestured vaguely at Lord Bash. "For his sake."
EC2 turned dutifully toward Lord Bash. "An AMI, Amazon Machine Image, is a blueprint. Everything your EC2 instance needs to launch: the operating system, the software, the configuration. Stamped out, perfectly, every time."
"You may use one of ours," EC2 continued, "Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Windows — ready made. Or you may create your own. You may then replicate it. Infinitely."
An AMI. A perfect image of Us... Replicated across every street, every village, every town. We are so generous to Our subjects. (Wipes away a tear)
We do briefly wonder if someday, some leader - perhaps from the land of North Korea, might study Our methods and replicate them.
Now, We, PERNy, the glorious, feigns to inform you that the high from the chicken noodle soup has worn off. We know Saturn sometimes gets jealous of Us and turns retrograde and sometimes the soup could fail to notice its felicity and turn against Us. We granted a quick look-see into the vast, beautiful, fathomless depths of Our awe-inspiring noggin. Now we must rest our mind and watch some Netflix and dream about exiling Node. Au revoir commoners.
We shall return.
— Part 1 of the AWS Royal Court Chronicles
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