It really boils down to how much you value your time! Once you have terminated an instance you will not be charged anything for it, but of course if you want to do anything you will need to create a whole new instance from scratch. When you are totally done with the instance, do the same but choose 'Terminate'?. When you want to start the instance again, do the same thing but choose 'Start'?. Do not leave an instance running unless you need to! We need to leave the instance we just created running while we add some software and do the rest of this notebook, but afterwards, remember to come back to this screen and stop the instance! You stop an instance by selecting the box next to its name, clicking the 'Actions'? button and choosing 'Instance state'? and 'Stop'?. The running instances are the expensive ones. It shows you which of your instances are running (green circle, labelled running) and which are available but not running (red circle, labelled stopped).

The Instance dashboard is your 'main'? page on EC2. Wait until the 'Status Checks'? column says 2/2 checks…, which means the checks are complete. These checks can take some time to complete (a few minutes).

The instance you just created will probably say 'Initializing'?, which refers to some checks that are done when an instance is started.

You will then be taken to the 'Instances'? dashboard, which you can always access by selecting 'Instances'? from the menu on the left hand side of the screen.

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