1. Select a US availability zone/geographic region

Amazon allocates EC2 resources (IP addresses, virtual hardware) in specific facilities that are meant to cover different geographic regions (also called availability zones). We support three zones: US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon) and US West (N. California).

1. Go to your EC2 Dashboard
2. Using the pull down list at the top right hand corner of the dashboard (next to your user name); choose that which is most appropriate to your institution's location.
   

2. Create an EC2 key pair and download your private key 

For more detailed information on creating and using a key pair with your EC2 instances, please see AWS Documentation: EC2 Key Pairs

1. Go to your EC2 Dashboard. 
2. In the left navigation bar, open the Network and Security section.
3. Select Key Pairs. 
4. Click on the Create Key Pair button. 
5. Enter a name for your key pair (e.g. eagle-i-key) and select create.
6. Your private key will be downloaded to your computer,  as a file with the name you specified and the .pem extension (you may be prompted by your browser to select a location). Store it in a dedicated directory to which you will come back later, e.g. /my-home/aws/keys