Monday, April 6, 2020

AWS AMI vs Launch Templates

Very often I get asked about the differences between AMI (Amazon Machine Images) and EC2 Launch Templates, although both of them have different purpose. This blog is about getting these concepts clear.

What is AMI?


There might be a requirement where we need to install softwares and applications on hundreds of EC2s. It's not practically possible to login to each of the EC2 and perform the task as it is time consuming and also prone to errors. We can automate these tasks using AMIs. Below is the workflow to start working with the AMIs.


Once an EC2 has been created, the appropriate software/applications have to be installed along with the configurations and then an AMI has to be created. The AMI has to OS and all the software/applications on top of it. The AMI usually is a couple of GB, based on the original EC2 which was created and is immutable (no changes can be made to it).

With this AMI, additional EC2s can be created and each one of the EC2 will have the original software automatically installed as in the case of Apache2. This makes getting the EC2 ready much easier/quicker.

Different ways of launching EC2 Instance


AWS provides multiple ways of launching EC2 instances via the SDK, CLI, CloudFormation and the EC2 Management Console (Web UI). From the EC2 Management Console again there are two ways, one is is using the Launch Instance wizard and other is via the EC2 Launch Templates as shown below.


Both these approaches lead to launching an EC2 and takes the required parameters for the same like the AMI which was mentioned above, the EBS volume size/type, SecurityGroup, KeyPair to be used and a few other details.


In the EC2 creation via the Wizard approach we need to select each and every time the AMI, Instance Type, Network Settings, Storage, Security Groups, pricing model etc from the different options. In the below screen the AMI has to be selected from the available ones. This is OK when we launch an EC2 a few times, but it's more of a routine task and is also time consuming.


This is where the EC2 Launch Templates come to the rescue. We can create a template and predefine all the EC2 properties and reuse the same to launch an EC2 instance. This way we don't need to select the EC2 properties again and again. Below is the template with the AMI, instance type, KeyPair, SecurityGroup predefined. Using this template we should be able to create an EC2 instance using Option (6).


CloudFormation Templates vs EC2 Launch Templates


While the EC2 Launch Templates can be used for the automation of the EC2 Instance creation. CloudFormation Templates are much more than that. It's possible to create many of the AWS resources via the CloudFormation Templates and connect them together, watch the drift (changes to the AWS resources) and much more. Here is the list of AWS Resources that can be created by CloudFormation.

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