EC2 Instance Licensing Model - Control Over Hardware Cores

Considerations for Hosting Vendor-Based Product on EC2

Question

You are a Systems Administrator for a company.

There is a need to host a vendor-based product on an EC2 Instance.

Due to the nature of the product's licensing model, you need to ensure that you have control over the number of cores of the underlying hardware.

In such a case, which of the following would you consider?

Answers

Explanations

Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer

A. B. C. D.

Correct Answer: D.

The AWS Documentation mentions the following.

Amazon EC2 Dedicated Hosts allow you to use your eligible software licenses from vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle on Amazon EC2

An Amazon EC2 Dedicated Host is a physical server fully dedicated for your use, so you can help address corporate compliance requirements.

An important difference between a Dedicated Host and a Dedicated instance is that a Dedicated Host gives you additional visibility and control over how instances are placed on a physical server.

You can consistently deploy your instances to the same physical server over time.

As a result, Dedicated Hosts enable you to use your existing server-bound software licenses and address corporate compliance and regulatory requirements.

Because this is clearly mentioned in the documentation, all other options are invalid.

For more information on dedicated hosts, please refer to the below URL-

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/dedicated-hosts/

The correct answer for this question is D. Dedicated Hosts.

Explanation: EC2 Dedicated Hosts provide physical servers dedicated to your use. This means that you have exclusive access to the underlying hardware of the host, including the number of cores.

When using Dedicated Hosts, you can launch EC2 instances on the host, and you have full control over the number of cores assigned to each instance. This allows you to ensure that you comply with the licensing model of the vendor-based product, which requires you to control the number of cores.

Reserved Instances (A) are EC2 instances that you reserve for a specific period, in exchange for a discounted hourly rate. Reserved instances provide you with capacity reservations and the ability to save money on your compute usage over time, but they do not provide you with control over the underlying hardware.

Dedicated Instances (B) are instances launched on hardware that is dedicated to a single customer. While Dedicated Instances provide you with dedicated hardware, they do not give you control over the number of cores of the underlying hardware.

Spot Instances (C) allow you to bid on unused EC2 capacity, which can be a cost-effective way to run applications that are flexible in terms of their start and end times. However, Spot Instances do not provide you with control over the underlying hardware and are not suitable for running applications that require dedicated hardware.

Therefore, Dedicated Hosts are the best option to ensure that you have control over the number of cores of the underlying hardware when hosting a vendor-based product on an EC2 instance.