Stop vs Terminate:
- Stop: root EBS volume preserved, instance can be restarted.
- Terminate: root EBS (if set to delete) is lost, instance removed.
Hibernate:
- Preserves in-memory (RAM) state to the root EBS volume.
- On restart, OS and applications resume instantly without rebooting → avoids cold start.
- Root EBS must be encrypted.
Use cases:
- Long-running processes.
- Services needing fast resume without reloading state.
- Applications with long initialization times.
Requirements & Limitations
- Supported families: C3, C4, C5, I3, M3, M4, R3, R4, T2, T3, etc.
- RAM < 150 GB.
- Not supported on bare metal.
- Supported OS: Amazon Linux 2, Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, Windows.
- Root volume: EBS, encrypted, large enough for RAM dump.
- Works with On-Demand, Reserved, Spot.
- Max hibernation period: 60 days.