Amazon EC2 allows users to launch virtual servers called instances in the AWS cloud. Instances can be configured with different CPU, memory, storage and networking capacities depending on the instance type. Users are responsible for launching, stopping, and terminating instances using Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) which contain the information needed to launch instances with a specific configuration like an operating system. Common tasks with EC2 instances include installing web and application servers as well as remotely managing instances. AMIs provide the information required to consistently deploy instances.