Amazon Introduces Web-Based Computing on Demand

WebKnowHow
Friday, August 25, 2006; 02:44 AM

Amazon launched a private beta of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) -- a web service that provides resizable compute capacity via the internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

From the official webpage: "Just as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enables storage in the cloud, Amazon EC2 enables 'compute' in the cloud. Amazon EC2's simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon's proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change."

Every EC2 "instance" offers the equivalent of a 1.7Ghz Xeon CPU, 1.75GB of RAM, 160GB of local disk, and 250Mb/s of network bandwidth.  At the announced rates, it will cost approximately 75 dollars to store 1 GB with 10 Gig transfer and have it running 24 hours per day for a month.