What is the difference between Amazon Linux and RedHat Enterprise Linux on AWS EC2?

09
2013-08
  • coding crow

    I am very new to this and I don't even know if I should ask this question here or on Stackoverflow or ServerFault.

    The Question

    I wish to set up a EC2 instance on Amazon Web Services. My understanding is RedHat Enterprise Linux(RHEL) cost $0.21/hour for an m1.Small more than Amazon Linux (which is free). Is my understanding correct? Is there any difference between the performance of RHEL and Amazon Linux? If I am looking for a free Linux which one should I go with in AWS EC2?

    • Answers
  • Soz

    Red Hat pricing details are here http://aws.amazon.com/rhel/ and Amazon Linux is here: http://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-ami/; as you say, RHEL implies additional cost, whilst Amazon Linux involves 'no additional charge' beyond the charges for running instances and related services.

    Amazon Linux, like CentOS, is based on RHEL -- it is fundamentally a minimal/basic install of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (hence optimised for the purpose). Amazon are currently offering a year's free Amazon EC2 Micro Instance for new customers within the 'free usage tier', as per http://wpmu.org/would-you-like-a-free-server-for-a-year/. If you would like to try EC2 for free, because of the limited memory/resource availability for the 'Micro Instance', trying Amazon Linux makes sense.

  • DevSolar

    Usually, the price you pay for the "Enterprise" versions (RHEL, SLES) isn't for a bonus in performance, but for a bonus in service. For example, a certain to-remain-unnamed provider of "enterprise" databases won't offer you any support unless you are running the database on a certified Linux (i.e., SLES, RHEL). If you don't have support contracts to worry about, there's little to be had in the "enterprise" distributions that is worth the price.

    IMVHO.


    • Related Question

    backup - Are whole VM images backed up on Amazon EC2/S3?
  • John

    I've been trying to get my head around Amazon Web Services as a VPS provider. My understanding is a EC2 instance running Windows is basically a Windows VM, very similar to renting a VPS from a more traditional hosting provider.

    I don't want to have complex backups, either to administer or to restore - if my restore involves installing SVN, MySQL, Jira, etc on a new box before I can even try to restore the backup then it's not great to me.

    What I really want is a service which backs up my entire VM... if the PC running the VPS dies then the VM image is installed on a new PC and off we go again.

    With Amazon being all about flexibility and elasticity, I wondered if they have this service? I can't figure it out from reading their docs.


    • Related Answers
  • Tomas Markauskas

    If you use EBS volumes then you don't can create backups via snapshots which is very easy to do (just a single API call or via the aws console). You can also use an EBS-based windows AMI so the whole system would be stored on EBS.