how to run python code on amazon ec2 webservice?

Question

I have never used amazon web services so I apologize for the naive question. I am looking to run my code on a cluster as the quad-core architecture on my local machine doesn't seem to be doing the job. The documentation seems overwhelming and I don't even know which AWS services are going to be used for running my script on EC2. Would I have to use their storage facility (S3) because I guess if I have to run my script, I'm going to have to store it on the cloud in a place where the cluster instance has access to the files or do I upload my files somewhere else while working with EC2? If this is true is it possible for me to upload my entire directory which has all the contents of the files required by my application onto s3. Any guidance would be much appreciated. So I guess my question is do I have to use S3 to store my code in a place accessible by the cluster? If so is there an easy way to do it? Meaning I have only seen examples of creating buckets wherein one file can be transferred per bucket. Can you transfer an entire folder into a bucket?

If we don't require to use S3 then which other service should I use to give the cluster access to my scripts to be executed?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You do not need to use S3, you would likely want to use EBS for storing the code if you need it to be preserved between instance launches. When you launch an instance you have the option to add an ebs storage volume to the drive. That drive will automatically be mounted to the instance and you can access it just like you would on any physical machine. ssh your code up to the amazon machine and fire away.