EC2 Spot Instances

Overview

• Cost Savings: Up to 90% discount compared to On-Demand pricing.
• Max Spot Price: Users define the maximum price they are willing to pay.
• Price Variation: Spot price varies based on supply and demand.
• Termination Options: If the spot price exceeds the user's max price, the instance can be stopped or terminated.
• Grace Period: Users have a two-minute grace period to decide upon receiving a termination notice.

Spot Instance Strategies

• Spot Blocks: Reserve a spot instance for 1 to 6 hours to prevent AWS from reclaiming it.
• Use Cases: Suitable for batch jobs, data analysis, and workloads resilient to failures. Not recommended for critical jobs or databases.

Spot Instance Pricing

• Price Fluctuations: Spot prices vary by Availability Zone (AZ).
• Example: An m4.large instance price over three months in us-east-1 region.
• Cost Optimization: Users can set a max price and only pay for the spot instance when it's below this threshold.
• Savings: Significant savings compared to On-Demand pricing.

Terminating Spot Instances

• Spot Requests: Define instance count, max price, launch specifications, and request type.
• Request Types:
  • One-Time Request: The request is fulfilled and then goes away.
  • Persistent Request: The request remains active and instances can be relaunched if stopped.
• Cancellation: Cancel the spot request first, then terminate the associated instances to prevent automatic relaunching.

Spot Fleets