Are AWS reserved EC2 instances applied to free marketplace instances?

2
votes

I use the AWS marketplace CentOS micro and small instances as an image base for my instances.

Looking a the EC2 instance reservation user interface, there are a few options to select, for instance:

  • Linux/Unix
  • Linux/Unix ( Amazon VPC )
  • Suse...
  • RedHat...
  • etc

CentOS is not a standard option at EC2, but it is a marketplace free of charge image. If I take the first option above (Linux/Unix) that matches my CentOS image size ( tiny ) will the pricing from the reserved instance be applicable to the CentOS images I create ?

2
amazon-web-services

2 Answers

2
votes

For the CentOS AMI you would want to select Linux/Unix or Linux/Unix (VPC), depending on whether you are running in EC2 classic or in a VPC.

The reason the other platform types are present in the list is because there is an accompanying additional licensing fee that is baked into the per hour server usage cost for those types of servers. SUSE, Redhat Enterprise Linux, Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Windows Server + SQL Server all require a paid-for license (which Amazon bakes into the usage cost). This does not apply to CentOS; the "platform" in this case is just "Linux/Unix" (or Linux/Unix (VPC)).

1
votes

Amazon Linux is based on CentOS. It is CentOS, but AWS manages what software is installed as standard, and which versions of software (eg Python).

Amazon Linux instances can be updated to the latest version by running sudo yum update.

Therefore, if you want to use CentOS on EC2, the best option is to use the Amazon Linux AMI shown in the Quick Start screen when launching an EC2 instance. It also qualifies for the Free Usage Tier if you are in the first 12 months of your AWS account.