Elastic Compute Service (ECS) is a versatile, secure, and reliable cloud computing service that is easy to use and highly scalable. ECS helps reduce IT costs and improve operations and maintenance (O&M) efficiency, enabling you to focus on core business innovation.
A wide range of products
ECS provides one of the industry’s most extensive product lineups.
Support for mainstream computing architectures
ECS offers instances based on x86 and ARM architectures to meet your needs across different technical frameworks.
A wide range of instance types
ECS provides a variety of entry-level and enterprise-grade instances tailored for individual developers and enterprise customers across diverse scenarios. The product lineup includes three main categories: general computing, heterogeneous computing, and high-performance computing (HPC). It also supports multiple enhanced instance families optimized for specific workloads, such as network-enhanced, storage-enhanced, memory-enhanced instance family, security-enhanced instance family, big data, high frequency, and heterogeneous computing instances—delivering exceptional value.
Multiple product forms
In addition to ECS instances, Alibaba Cloud offers bare metal servers and Dedicated Hosts (DDH). Bare metal servers eliminate virtualization overhead and deliver optimal performance when used with container services. A Dedicated Host (DDH) is a physical server dedicated to a single tenant, running in a single-tenant environment powered by Alibaba Cloud’s virtualization service. You can create ECS instances on demand to exclusively utilize all physical resources on the host.
Elastic and flexible
Alibaba Cloud supports global multi-region deployments and multi-data-center architectures. With robust resource availability, you can provision resources elastically at any time. On the Alibaba Cloud platform, scale out to 10,000 instances within minutes to handle peak business demands, and release excess capacity when traffic declines to reduce costs.
Vertical elasticity
Adjust configurations freely as your business needs evolve. Upgrade or downgrade compute resources, scale storage capacity, and modify network bandwidth at any time.
Horizontal elasticity
Use horizontal scaling with Alibaba Cloud Auto Scaling to automatically add or remove instances based on schedules or real-time business load, minimizing operational costs.
Stable and reliable
Instance reliability
Single-instance availability is 99.975%. Multi-zone, multi-instance availability reaches 99.995%.
Cloud Disk Reliability
Disks use multiple replicas to ensure data durability and reliability of 99.9999999%.
Data reliability
Instances automatically migrate in the event of hardware failure and support snapshot backups, automatic alerts, and other protective measures.
For more information, see Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) Instance Stability Whitepaper.
Convenient and easy to use
Easy operations
Use the intuitive web-based user interface with built-in modules that allow you to manage ECS instances as easily as physical machines. Start, stop, and modify configurations with minimal effort.
One-click deployment
Deploy a broad selection of operating systems and applications with a single click using images. Replicate your environment consistently across multiple ECS instances using the same image for rapid scaling.
Multiple O&M tools
It supports various O&M features, such as Terraform, CloudOps Orchestration Service, and Resource Orchestration Service, along with the SMC Cloud Migration tool, to help you migrate smoothly to the cloud.
Security assurance
Multiple security services
ECS provides comprehensive security services including Anti-DDoS, port intrusion detection, vulnerability scanning, and trojan scans. It has achieved multiple international security certifications.
Comprehensive hardware encryption
ECS supports trusted computing, hardware encryption, and virtualized encrypted computing to deliver end-to-end hardware-level data protection.
Cost optimization
Flexible billing methods
ECS offers three billing methods—subscription, pay-as-you-go, and spot instances—to suit different usage scenarios.
Multiple discount options
Combine savings plans and reserved instances to further reduce your resource costs.
Elastic Transformation Billing Method
Select the optimal billing method for each ECS resource based on your needs, enabling you to adapt to changing business requirements and optimize expenses.