Run

Working with virtual infrastructure is not a whole lot different than using real hardware, but it’s easy to get confused when things are different. In this article I’ll take a look at the life cycle of Amazon EC2 instances and how it differs from the traditional life cycle of real computers. Update January 2010: This article has been updated to incorporate new options introduced by the Boot-from-EBS feature. The Life Cycle of “Real” Computers By “life cycle” I mean “the different stages that a computer goes through from power-on to power-off”. This is best explained with a diagram: Real computers begin their service lives “off”. Someone hits the power button and the computers start booting up, eventually settling into a “running” state. From there they can be rebooted, hibernated, suspended, or shut-down normally. (Of course, something abnormal can happen, such as a power failure, which would cause the machine to immediately return to the “off” state. This is not represented in the diagram above.) ...