Within the scope of cloud computing, enterprises have strict requirements for the visibility and control of hardware resources. The dedicated hosting service provided by AWS is precisely designed to solve this core contradiction.
Understand the core value of dedicated hosting
One of the so-called purchasing options provided by AWS is called Dedicated Hosting, which falls under the category of EC2 instances. Its core value is that customers have exclusive access to the physical server and have a clear understanding of the specific specifications of the underlying hardware. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional shared tenant model, which brings higher transparency and stronger control to the enterprise.
This service is of vital importance to companies that must strictly comply with software license agreements. For many traditional enterprise-level software, such as some databases or operating systems, the licensing fee is directly related to the number of CPU slots or physical cores of the physical server. Dedicated hosting allows customers to precisely match software licensing to the underlying hardware, thereby avoiding potential licensing compliance risks.
Meet compliance and regulatory requirements
In some regulated industries, such as finance or healthcare, regulations may require that application data run on isolated, physically exclusive hardware. Dedicated hosts can be used to meet these stringent compliance requirements. Enterprises can guarantee that their workloads will not be shared with other unknown AWS customers.
By placing specific applications on designated physical hosts, enterprises can more easily undergo internal or external audits. This provides clear evidence of hardware mapping for compliance reporting and simplifies the process of meeting traditional data center management standards in the cloud.
Software licensing and migration support
Dedicated hosts support the "bring your own license" model, which means that enterprises can purchase permanently licensed software in local data centers, such as Oracle databases or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and directly transfer it to AWS dedicated hosts to run. This protects enterprises' investment in existing software and reduces the overall cost of cloud migration.
AWS currently has restrictions on Amazon Machine Images that are compatible with dedicated hosts. For example, some AMIs that cover specific license fees, such as some Red Hat or SUSE images, may not be directly bootable on dedicated hosts. Users have to choose an image that comes with their own license, or use other AMIs that meet the conditions.
Host configuration and instance deployment
Users can use the AWS management console, CLI or SDK to configure dedicated hosts. During configuration, they must specify the instance type series, such as M5 and C5, as well as the availability zone and number of hosts. After the configuration is completed, the host will be in the "available" state, and users can start launching EC2 instances on it.
When launching an instance, users can directly specify the target dedicated host. Or set an "auto-placement" policy, causing AWS to automatically place instances on dedicated hosts with sufficient capacity. In order to maintain a stable binding relationship between the instance and the host, you can set a "host lease" to ensure that the instance can still return to the original physical host after it is restarted or stopped.
Management and Monitoring Practices
AWS provides services such as CloudTrail to track all activities on a dedicated host. API calls to start an instance on a dedicated host will be recorded and logs will be generated. API calls to stop an instance on a dedicated host will be recorded and logs will be generated. API calls to terminate an instance on a dedicated host will be recorded and logs will be generated. This provides enterprises with a complete operational audit trail, making it easier for companies to conduct security analysis and change management.
It is the user who can view the detailed usage of the host in the dedicated host section of the EC2 console. The monitoring indicators cover the number of vCPUs used; the remaining available capacity; and the list of instances currently running on it. This is a great help for capacity planning and cost optimization, and can ensure that hardware resources are fully utilized.
Usage restrictions and precautions
It should be noted that all EC2 instances opened on dedicated hosts must be placed in a virtual private cloud. This is an infrastructure requirement to ensure network isolation and security. At the same time, traditional EC2 security groups cannot be directly applied to the dedicated host itself, and security policies must be configured at the instance level or on the VPC network ACL.
Dedicated hosts may need to undergo hardware maintenance. At this time, AWS may temporarily mark the host status as "under evaluation." Users must pay attention to such status changes and cooperate with AWS to complete instance migration or maintenance operations to ensure that business continuity is not affected.
After knowing about dedicated hosting services, in which specific industry scenarios or business needs do you think companies must choose dedicated hosts instead of ordinary on-demand instances? Welcome to share your opinions in the comment area. If you find this article helpful, please like it to support it.
