What are the advantages of Amazon AWS over a dedicated server?

Question

Amazon Web Services

Good afternoon!
A project is being developed where several dedicated servers will be used -
i.e. there will be a common base, a site that will issue ip addresses of servers, and servers on which there will be websocket workers. (i.e. you need the appropriate access to enable pcntl in php )
I recently heard about Amazon AWS, went to their website, but I don’t fully understand the essence, so there are several questions on the merits:
1. What is the so-called. instance? I've seen different types, including Dedicated Hosting Instance.
Is it similar to vps?
2. What does it look like in practice? Those. if we are talking about a dedicated server, then ssh access is obtained and with the help of it the necessary software is installed and configured (specifically on Linux).
How does this work with AWS? Is access via ssh also provided? If not, how is the installation, for example, LAMP, security setup?
3. In the list of benefits, built-in scalability is indicated, what does this mean? Copying a running service and automatic load balancing?
4. Pricing policy - for the minimum tariff plan that I found ($400) with such characteristics, it is possible to rent about 10 servers, what is the economic benefit?

Answer 1

1. Yes, yes
2. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/WindowsG... for LAMP - similar.
3. It would be automatic if you wrote the software with the ability to do this, some of it can. For example, Kubernetes. Otherwise, manually launch the next instance and manually upload a copy of your software there.
4. Who said AWS is cheaper? Economic benefit only if you have a floating load. If usually there is no load, but occasionally the load increases by tens, hundreds and thousands of times, and then drops again - and your software can work with automatic scaling - this is beneficial. Otherwise - no.