When you use Elastic Compute Service (ECS), you may need to perform various operations on different resources, such as connecting to instances, replacing operating systems, resizing disks, upgrading or downgrading instance configurations, and using snapshots or images. This topic describes common operations on ECS resources.
Limits
For information about the usage notes of ECS instances, see Usage notes.
For information about the limits of ECS resources, see Limits and View and increase instance quotas.
Before you apply for Internet Content Provider (ICP) filings for websites that are deployed on your ECS instances, make sure that the instances meet ICP filing requirements. You can apply for only a limited number of ICP filing service identification numbers for each ECS instance. For more information, see Prepare and check the instance and access information.
Create and manage ECS instances
You can perform the following steps to manage the lifecycle of ECS instances:
If the instance type or network configuration of your instance does not meet your business requirements, you can change the instance type, IP address, and peak public bandwidth for the instance.
Subscription instances:
Pay-as-you-go instances:
IP addresses of ECS instances:
If the operating system of your instance does not meet your requirements, you can replace the operating system. For more information, see Replace the operating system (system disk) of an instance.
You can use the following features to manage ECS instances in a fine-grained manner:
Manage the billing of ECS instances
Subscription instances:
You can use one of the following methods to renew subscription instances:
Pay-as-you-go instances:
You can enable economical mode for pay-as-you-go instances. For more information, see Economical mode.
Change of instance billing methods:
Improve cost-effectiveness
You can purchase preemptible instances to reduce costs and use preemptible instances in conjunction with Auto Provisioning for automated provisioning of instances. For more information, see Create an auto provisioning group and Create a preemptible instance.
You can purchase reserved instances to improve the flexibility of paying for instances and reduce costs. For more information, see Purchase reserved instances.
You can purchase storage capacity units to offset the billing of pay-as-you-go cloud disks in the same region. For more information, see Purchase an SCU.
Create and manage disks
You can perform the following steps to use a disk as a data disk:
Initialize a data disk whose size does not exceed 2 TiB on a Linux instance or Initialize a data disk up to 2 TiB in size on a Windows instance.
Create a snapshot to back up data.
For more information, see Create a snapshot for a disk.
If the storage capacity of an existing disk does not meet your requirements, resize the disk. For more information, see the following topics:
If a data error occurs on a disk, use a snapshot created at a specific point in time to roll back the disk.
For more information, see Roll back a disk by using a snapshot.
If you want to restore a disk to its initial state, re-initialize the disk.
For more information, see Re-initialize a data disk.
Create and manage snapshots
You can perform the following steps to use snapshots:
Create a snapshot. You can use one of the following methods to manually or automatically create a snapshot:
Use an automatic snapshot policy to automatically create snapshots on a regular basis. For more information, see Enable or disable an automatic snapshot policy.
Delete snapshots that are no longer needed to save storage space.
For more information, see Reduce snapshot fees.
Snapshots are used in the following scenarios:
To copy or restore data, you can use a snapshot to create or roll back a disk. For more information, see Create a disk from a snapshot and Roll back a disk by using a snapshot.
To deploy an environment, you can use a system disk snapshot to create a custom image and then use the custom image to create instances. For more information, see Create a custom image from a snapshot and Create an ECS instance by using a custom image.
Create and manage custom images
You can manage custom images in the ECS console. You can use a custom image to deploy a business environment in a quick manner.
Create a custom image.
Copy custom images across regions.
For more information, see Copy a custom image.
Share custom images across accounts.
For more information, see Share a custom image.
Import and export custom images.
Update or delete custom images.
Create and manage security groups
You can perform the following steps to create and manage security groups:
You can clone a security group across regions and network types to simplify business deployment. For more information, see Clone a security group.
Create and attach instance RAM roles
You can perform the following steps to create and attach an instance RAM role:
Optional. Grant a RAM user the permissions to manage an instance RAM role.
For more information, see Authorize a RAM user to manage an instance RAM role.
Create and attach an instance RAM role.
For more information, see Attach an instance RAM role to an ECS instance.
Replace the instance RAM role at any time based on your requirements.
For more information, see Replace an instance RAM role.
Create and manage SSH key pairs
You can perform the following steps to create and manage SSH key pairs:
Create and manage ENIs
You can perform the following steps to create and manage elastic network interfaces (ENIs):
Configure an IPv6 address for an ECS instance
For more information, see Configure an IPv6 address for an ECS instance.
Use tags
You can use tags to manage resources to enhance efficiency. You can perform the following steps to use tags:
Use launch templates
Launch templates help you create ECS instances that have the identical configurations. You can perform the following steps to use launch templates:
Use deployment sets
Deployment sets help you implement high availability for underlying applications. You can perform the following steps to use deployment sets:
Use Cloud Assistant
Cloud Assistant allows you to send remote commands to ECS instances without the need to use jump servers. You can perform the following steps to use Cloud Assistant:
Optional. Manually install and configure Cloud Assistant Agent on specific instances.
For more information, see Install Cloud Assistant Agent.