Users and organizations across the globe continue to unearth new Amazon EC2 use cases, from simple and straightforward websites to complex machine learning web apps.

Enterprise large and small, developers solo and squad, are finding new and creative ways to put the power that Amazon makes available to them via Elastic Compute Cloud. The virtually unlimited compute capacity, and sublime integrations with other AWS services, means that EC2 is the platform of choice for any and all manner of cloud based solutions.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the interesting and commonly employed ways of putting the Amazon EC2 platform to use.

EC2 use cases

The low costs and the ability to turn features on or off with the click of a button means everyone from web and application developers to gamers, researchers and scientists to entertainment and marketing companies are jumping in on the EC2 bandwagon to make the cloud work for them.

Here are some common EC2 use cases:

Hosting environments

One of the foremost uses of EC2 is for hosting a variety of applications, software and websites on the cloud. Users are even hosting games on the cloud, turning the servers on and off when needed. And the best part of this dynamic and scalable environment is that its compute capacity can grow along with the need of the application. This in turn ensures the best quality service for all end users at all times. Companies like Netflix, Reddit, and Nintendo are proof of the EC2 hosting success.

Development and test environments

The scalable nature of EC2 means that organizations now have the ability to create and deploy large scale testing and development environments with unprecedented ease. The Amazon cloud does away with any heavy upfront investments for hardware, all the while providing as scalable solution.

Backup and disaster recovery

Companies are leveraging EC2 as a medium for performing disaster recovery for both active and passive environments. The fact that the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud can be turned up quickly in case of an emergency, means that businesses have access to a faster failover with minimal downtime for their applications.

Banking and financial sector

These are areas that demand the utmost in security and scalability — both are factors that Amazon EC2 provides in droves. Financial institutions trust the Amazon cloud to provide a range of highly secure services. Retail and commercial banks, credit unions, insurance providers, card service companies, and major payment platforms rely on AWS for their scalable cloud computing needs. EC2 provides efficient solutions for financial giants like Capital One, BBVA, UniCredit, and Pacific Life.

Marketing and advertisement

Low costs and rapid provisioning capabilities that EC2 allows have resulted in the platform increasingly being used to host marketing and advertising environments on the fly.

High performance computing

The need for HPC is exponentially on the rise, and EC2 provides specialized virtualized servers that provide both high performance networking and compute power. These can be used to perform a range of CPU intensive and number crunching tasks, including Big Data analytics and processing. NASA uses Amazon EC2 for JPL, and Pfizer is another organization that employs the use of HPC using EC2 instances.