Choosing an AMI

An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) specifies the operating system, architecture (32-bit or 64-bit), AWS Region, and virtualization type (Paravirtualization or HVM). An AMI is the basis for a virtual machine (also known as an instance) that you launch in AWS.

The virtualization type depends on the instance type that you use. After selecting an instance type based on the expected storage and computational load, check the supported virtualization types. Then, identify the correct AMI based on architecture, AWS Region, and virtualization type.