Detailed walkthrough of the key tabs you'll encounter when working with EC2 in the AWS Console

If you’ve ever opened the EC2 dashboard and felt like you just walked into mission control at NASA—don’t worry, you’re not alone. With so many tabs, buttons, and acronyms flying around, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

But fear not! In this blog, we’ll break down the essential EC2 Console tabs—what they do, why they matter, and how they fit into your cloud journey. Whether you're launching your first instance or managing a fleet, this walkthrough will help you move from “Where do I click?” to “I’ve got this.”

Let’s decode the dashboard and make EC2 feel a lot less like rocket science. 🧑‍🚀💻

When you log into the AWS Console and navigate to EC2 > Instances, selecting an instance and scrolling down reveals seven key tabs. In this post, we’ll explore each of these tabs to understand what they offer and how to use them effectively.

Let’s launch an EC2 instance and select it from the Instances list.

In the screenshot above, you can see seven key tabs associated with the selected instance. Let’s explore each of these tabs in detail.

1. Details Tab: The Details tab provides essential metadata and configuration information about your EC2 instance. It’s your go-to section for understanding the instance’s identity, lifecycle, and basic settings.

🖱️ Select Your Instance to View Configuration Tabs as shown below. Under the Details tab, you’ll find key information including the Public IP and Private IP addresses. Every server typically has two types of IP(Internet Protocol) addresses:

🌐 Public IP Address: Used to access the server or its applications over the internet.
Use Cases: Connecting to the server via SSH or RDP, Accessing web applications hosted on the server and Integrating with external tools or services.
Note: Public IPs are dynamic by default—they may change when the instance is stopped and restarted unless you assign an Elastic IP.

🔒 Private IP Address: Used for internal communication within the same Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).
Use Cases: Connecting to other instances in the same VPC, Backend communication between services (e.g., database and application server) and Secure data transfer without exposing traffic to the internet.
Note: Private IPs are static—they remain the same even if the instance is stopped and restarted.

Also under Details tab we can see Instance ID, Instance Type, state (Running/Stopped), Availability zone and VPC/subnet details, Launch time and AMI ID.

🧠 Why It Matters:
→ Troubleshooting: Quickly check instance type, zone, and AMI for debugging.
→ Auditing: Track launch time and platform for compliance.
→ Scaling Decisions: Use instance type and architecture to plan upgrades or migrations.

2. Status and Alarm Tab: The Status Checks tab helps you monitor the health and availability of your EC2 instance.

✅ Understanding EC2 Status Checks (2/2 Checks) : When you launch a new EC2 instance, it initially enters the initializing state. During this time, AWS automatically performs these checks to ensure your instance is functioning properly.

• System Status Check: Verifies whether the instance is properly configured at the data center level—this includes hardware, networking, and power supply. (OR) Verifies the underlying AWS infrastructure (e.g., networking, power, hardware).

• Instance Status Check: Ensures that the instance is functioning correctly within your AWS account, including the operating system and software configuration.

• EBS Volume Check (recent addition): If you've attached an EBS volume (e.g., 8 GB), this check confirms whether the volume is properly initialized and attached to your instance.

⏳ Note: These checks typically take 2–5 minutes to complete. After refreshing the page, you should see “2/2 checks passed”, indicating that your instance is healthy and ready for use. If either check fails, consider rebooting or investigating logs.

🧠 Why It Matters:
→ Quick Diagnosis: If an instance fails a check, you can identify whether the issue is with AWS infrastructure or your OS.
→ Automation: You can set up CloudWatch alarms to respond to failed checks (e.g., reboot the instance or notify admins).
→ Reliability: Ensures your instance is ready to serve traffic or workloads.

Alarms: The Alarms tab lets you view and manage CloudWatch alarms that are associated with your EC2 instance. These alarms monitor metrics and trigger actions when thresholds are breached.

Key Components of an Alarm:

📊 Common Metrics to Monitor:
CPUUtilization – Detect high or low CPU usage
StatusCheckFailed – Monitor instance health
NetworkIn / NetworkOut – Track incoming/outgoing traffic
DiskReadOps / DiskWriteOps – Monitor disk activity

Tip: Set alarms to trigger auto-scaling or notifications.

JFYI - 🏢 How AWS Allocates Servers from Data Centers?

When you use AWS, you're essentially requesting resources from one of their global data centers—for example, the Hyderabad data center. From your AWS account, you can request a server by specifying the configuration you need, such as: 1 vCPU , 1 GB RAM.

Once you click Launch Instance, AWS automatically provisions a virtual server (EC2 instance) for you in the selected data center. This server is dedicated to your request and is managed by AWS.

You can then access and control this server directly from the AWS Management Console, where you can monitor its status, configure networking, manage storage, and more.

3. Monitoring Tab: The Monitoring tab displays graphs and metrics that help you understand your EC2 instance’s performance. These metrics are collected at regular intervals and can be used to troubleshoot, optimize, or automate actions.

To monitor CPU utilization, disk I/O, network traffic, and any custom metrics you've configured, you can use Amazon CloudWatch. It provides real-time insights into your instance's performance and helps you set alarms or take automated actions based on metric thresholds.

→ Tip: Use this tab to identify performance bottlenecks.

4. Security Tab: Displays security group and key pair details. The Security tab in the EC2 dashboard includes key configurations that control access to your instance:

• Inbound Rules: Define which incoming traffic is allowed to reach your instance (e.g., allowing SSH on port 22 or HTTP on port 80).

• Outbound Rules: Specify which outgoing traffic is permitted from your instance to external destinations.

• SSH/RDP Access Configuration: Controls remote access to your instance:

  • SSH for Linux-based instances (typically on port 22)

  • RDP for Windows-based instances (typically on port 3389)

These rules are managed through Security Groups, which act as virtual firewalls for your EC2 instances.

Tip: Always restrict access to only necessary IPs and ports.

5. Networking Tab: The Networking tab provides detailed information about how your EC2 instance is connected within your AWS environment. It includes:

• VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): The isolated network environment where your instance resides.

• Subnet: A segment of the VPC that determines the instance’s IP range and availability zone.

• Private IP Address: Used for internal communication within the VPC.

• Public IP Address: Used for internet-facing access (if assigned).

• Elastic IP: A static public IP that can be associated with your instance.

• Network Interface (ENI): Shows the attached network interface and its configuration.

• Security Groups: Linked to the instance for controlling inbound and outbound traffic.

🧠 Tip: Use this tab to verify connectivity settings, troubleshoot network issues, or reassign IPs and interfaces as needed.

6. Storage Tab: The Storage tab shows all the volumes and storage devices attached to your EC2 instance. It helps you manage data persistence, performance, and backup strategies. Key Components:

→ Root Device:
1. The primary volume that contains the operating system.
2. Typically an EBS (Elastic Block Store) volume.
3. Can be configured to delete on instance termination or persist.

→ Block Devices:
1. Additional EBS volumes attached to the instance.
2. Used for storing application data, logs, databases, etc.
3. You can attach/detach these volumes as needed.

→ Volume Type:
Indicates performance characteristics:
1. gp3 / gp2: General Purpose SSD
2. io1 / io2: Provisioned IOPS SSD (high performance)
3. st1: Throughput-optimized HDD
4. sc1: Cold HDD (low-cost archival)

→ Snapshot ID:
1. If the volume was created from a snapshot, this ID links to the backup source.
2. Useful for restoring previous states or cloning environments.

→ Device Name: Shows how the volume is mounted (e.g., /dev/xvda, /dev/sdf).

7. Tags Tab: Helps organize and manage resources. It include Key-value pairs like Name: WebServer or Environment: Production
🛠️ Best Practices:
a) Use consistent naming conventions.
b) Avoid overly generic keys like Test or Misc.
c) Limit to 50 tags per resource (AWS limit).
d) Tags are case-sensitive.

How Tags Help:
→ Search & Filter: Easily find resources in the AWS console.
→ Automation: Trigger actions based on tags (e.g., backup only instances with Backup=True).
→ Billing: Break down costs by tag in AWS Cost Explorer.
→ Security & Compliance: Audit resources by owner or environment.

Tip: Use consistent naming conventions for easier automation and billing.

A few more details to know — under the Details tab:
In the Details tab of your EC2 instance, you'll find both Public and Private DNS names. These are domain names linked to your instance’s IP addresses. For example:

• www.youtube.com and www.instagram.com are domain names used to access specific applications.

• Similarly, AWS provides a default DNS name for every EC2 instance, which you can use to access your server.

DNS (Domain Name System) translates human-friendly domain names into IP addresses. So instead of typing the IP address, you can use the DNS name to reach your application. If your application is running on the server, you can access it using the DNS name provided by AWS—just like you would access www.facebook.com to view Facebook.

🔚 Conclusion

And there you have it—a whirlwind tour through the seven mighty tabs of your EC2 instance dashboard! From peeking into performance metrics to locking down security like a pro, each tab plays its part in making your cloud journey smoother, smarter, and a little more magical.

Navigating the EC2 instance view in the AWS Console can feel overwhelming at first—but once you understand the purpose of each tab, it becomes a powerful dashboard for managing your infrastructure. From monitoring performance and configuring security to managing storage and networking, each tab offers critical insights and controls that help you operate your instances efficiently and securely.

Whether you're troubleshooting, optimizing, or scaling your environment, knowing where to look and what each tab offers is key to becoming a confident AWS practitioner. Keep exploring, stay curious, and let the Console work for you.

So next time you're staring at your EC2 screen wondering "What does this tab even do?", just remember: you've got the map, the guide, and the know-how. Go forth and click with confidence!

😀Happy tabbing—and may your instances always be healthy and your bills delightfully low. ☁️💡