What is the difference between ami and snapshot?

 In the context of AWS for ensuring security there is a minor difference between AMI( Amazon machine language) and Snapshot. The primary difference lies in their scope and even the purposes of both. An Amazon machine language is a comprehensive snapshot of an entire EC2 which includes an operating system, application, and other added configurations. AMI is also used in launching new instances by using the same setup.

On the other hand, the snapshot is considered as a point-in-time backup of an EBS volume. Thus, it captures the volume of the data at that specific moment and can be used for creating new volumes or for restoring data.

Here is the example given of creating AMI and Snapshot:-

For creating an AMI:-
AWS EC2 create-image – instance-id i- 1234567890abcdef0 – name “My server” – description “An AMI for my server”
For creating a snapshot:-
AWS EC2 create- snapshot – volume- Id vol- 049df61146c4d7901—description “My volume snapshot”