What is an Amazon Machine Image?

• AMI are customization of an EC2 instance in which we can add our own softwares, configurations, OS, monitoring, etc. - It has faster boot time and configuration because all your software is pre-packed (as compared to putting it into EC2 User Data). - AMI are built for a specific region (and can be copied across regions as).
• You can launch EC2 instance from: - A public AMI - Your own AMI - An AMI from Amazon MarketPlace

Following is the list of steps that need to be completed, in order, to create AMI.

1. Start an EC2 instance and customize it.
2. Stop the instance (for data integrity)
3. Build an AMI - this will also create EBS snapshot.
4. Launch instance from other AMIs.