What is Elastic IP in AWS and why it is useful

Question

I stumbled upon Elastic IP while learning the basics of AWS terminology. However, the official documentation's explanation of Elastic IP leaves me perplexed.

So, I'm seeking for a clear explanation of Elastic IP and how it differs from an instance's public IP.

Answer 1

A static public IPv4 address connected with your AWS account in a certain Region is known as an Elastic IP address. An Elastic IP address is kept when you stop and relaunch your instance in a virtual private cloud, unlike an auto-assigned public IP address (VPC).

The most common use of elastic IP addresses is to aid fault-tolerant instances or software. If an Elastic IP address is associated with an EC2 instance that is stopped or terminated, you can remap the address and associate it with another instance in your account.