Key points

• EC2 gives the team control of the guest operating system, software, networking, and attached storage.
• That control also makes patching, scaling, availability, and runtime operations the team's responsibility.

Best-known use cases

• Host self-managed data tools that need operating-system or storage control.
• Run persistent processing workers with custom networking and software.

What candidates often confuse it with

• EC2 is the custom-compute choice; EMR, Batch, ECS, and EKS move different parts of the data-processing stack into managed services.

Key takeaway

Choose EC2 only when a data workload needs host-level control that a managed processing surface cannot provide.

Relevant exam tasks

• D1.2 — Task 1.2: Transform and process data
• 1.2.1 — Optimize container usage for performance needs (for example, Amazon EKS, Amazon ECS).
• D4.1 — Task 4.1: Apply authentication mechanisms
• 4.1.6 — Describe the differences between managed services and unmanaged services.

Learn more

• DEA-C01 in-scope services
• DEA-C01 Domain 1: Data Ingestion and Transformation
• DEA-C01 Domain 4: Data Security and Governance