2.2 Virtual machines and instance types
You can pick an instance size for a workload instead of guessing large.
Before:01. Cloud FoundationsUnlocks:03. Storage & Databases
The same thing, three names
One idea, sold under a different brand by each provider. Learn it once and you can read any job advertisement.
- On AWS
- EC2
- On Azure
- Virtual Machines
- On Google Cloud
- Compute Engine
Renting a virtual machine is the cloud's most literal transaction, and this topic covers what the instance families mean — general, compute, memory, storage, GPU — plus images, snapshots and golden images for repeatable builds. It follows virtualization because a rented instance is that machinery sold by the hour. The habit it teaches is right-sizing from measurement; the confusion it corrects is sizing from fear, where every server is large because nobody ever measured what small would do.
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Hypervisors, virtualisation and what you are actually renting
What you rent is a slice of a physical machine, presented as though it were your own, with the hypervisor keeping the tenants apart. Holding that picture makes performance surprises easier to interpret.
Instance families: general, compute, memory, storage, GPU
Instance families exist because workloads are lopsided: some need processors, some need memory, some need disk throughput, some need graphics processors. Picking the family first narrows the choice far more than picking a size.
Images, snapshots and golden images
An image is the starting state of a machine, a snapshot captures one later, and a prepared image lets every new machine start configured. This is how a fleet stays consistent without anyone logging in.
Right-sizing from measurement, not from fear
Right-sizing means choosing from measured usage rather than from anxiety, and oversized instances are the most common avoidable line on a cloud bill. The measurement has to come first.
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