[nanomonkey]

Setting up emacs server pretty much solves this problem as each subsequent launch uses the same running daemon. After that you just set up an alias that launches emacsclient like the following:

alias editor='emacsclient -t'

alias visual='emacsclient -c -a emacs'

[gnulinux]

Unfortunately, I don't expect to have emacs server running in an EC2 instance intended to run a company service since it needs to be a copy of prod instance (for testing/development). In such instances nano is helpful.

[nanomonkey]

Ah, yes that is where tramp emacs package comes in handy, as it allows one to edit remote files within your local instance of emacs.

Note there is also helm-aws [https://github.com/istib/helm-aws] for managing AWS EC2 server instances directly from Emacs.