What does the acronym EC2 represent in AWS?

The acronym EC2 stands for Elastic Compute Cloud. This service is a core component of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is designed to provide resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Essentially, EC2 allows users to launch virtual servers, known as instances, with various configuration options based on the specific requirements of their applications.

The term "Elastic" reflects the ability of users to scale compute resources up or down as needed, allowing for greater flexibility and cost management. This elasticity is particularly useful for applications with varying demand, as it enables automatic scaling based on traffic or workload without requiring a significant investment in hardware.

By utilizing EC2, customers benefit from the on-demand nature of cloud computing, where they only pay for the compute resources they consume, making it an economical and effective solution for hosting applications, running web servers, processing data, and more.