A Spot Instance is an instance that uses spare EC2 capacity that is available for less than the On-Demand price. Because Spot Instances enable you to request unused EC2 instances at steep discounts, you can lower your Amazon EC2 costs significantly. The hourly price for a Spot Instance is called a Spot price. The Spot price of each instance type in each Availability Zone is set by Amazon EC2, and is adjusted gradually based on the long-term supply of and demand for Spot Instances. Your Spot Instance runs whenever capacity is available. Show Spot Instances are a cost-effective choice if you can be flexible about when your applications run and if your applications can be interrupted. For example, Spot Instances are well-suited for data analysis, batch jobs, background processing, and optional tasks. For more information, see Amazon EC2 Spot Instances. For a comparison of the different purchasing options for EC2 instances, see Instance purchasing options. Topics ConceptsBefore you get started with Spot Instances, you should be familiar with the following concepts:
Key differences between Spot Instances and On-Demand InstancesThe following table lists the key differences between Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances. Spot InstancesOn-Demand Instances Launch time Can only be launched immediately if the Spot Instance request is active and capacity is available. Can only be launched immediately if you make a manual launch request and capacity is available. Available capacity If capacity is not available, the Spot Instance request continues to automatically make the launch request until capacity becomes available. If capacity is not available when you make a launch request, you get an insufficient capacity error (ICE). Hourly price The hourly price for Spot Instances varies based on long-term supply and demand. The hourly price for On-Demand Instances is static. Rebalance recommendationThe signal that Amazon EC2 emits for a running Spot Instance when the instance is at an elevated risk of interruption.You determine when an On-Demand Instance is interrupted (stopped, hibernated, or terminated).Instance interruption You can stop and start an Amazon EBS-backed Spot Instance. In addition, Amazon EC2 can interrupt an individual Spot Instance if capacity is no longer available. You determine when an On-Demand Instance is interrupted (stopped, hibernated, or terminated). How to get startedThe first thing that you need to do is get set up to use Amazon EC2. It can also be helpful to have experience launching On-Demand Instances before launching Spot Instances. Working with Spot Instances You can provision Spot Instances directly using Amazon EC2. You can also provision Spot Instances using other services in AWS. For more information, see the following documentation. Pricing and savingsYou pay the Spot price for Spot Instances, which is set by Amazon EC2 and adjusted gradually based on the long-term supply of and demand for Spot Instances. Your Spot Instances run until you terminate them, capacity is no longer available, or your Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group terminates them during scale in. If you or Amazon EC2 interrupts a running Spot Instance, you are charged for the seconds used or the full hour, or you receive no charge, depending on the operating system used and who interrupted the Spot Instance. For more information, see Billing for interrupted Spot Instances. View pricesTo view the current (updated every five minutes) lowest Spot price per AWS Region and instance type, see the Amazon EC2 Spot Instances Pricingpage. To view the Spot price history for the past three months, use the Amazon EC2 console or the describe-spot-price-history command (AWS CLI). For more information, see Spot Instance pricing history. We independently map Availability Zones to codes for each AWS account. Therefore, you can get different results for the same Availability Zone code (for example, View savingsYou can view the savings made from using Spot Instances for a single Spot Fleet or for all Spot Instances. You can view the savings made in the last hour or the last three days, and you can view the average cost per vCPU hour and per memory (GiB) hour. Savings are estimated and may differ from actual savings because they do not include the billing adjustments for your usage. For more information about viewing savings information, see Savings from purchasing Spot Instances. View billingYour bill provides details about your service usage. For more information, see Viewing your bill in the AWS Billing User Guide. What is onOn-Demand Instances let you pay for compute capacity by the hour or second (minimum of 60 seconds) with no long-term commitments. This frees you from the costs and complexities of planning, purchasing, and maintaining hardware and transforms what are commonly large fixed costs into much smaller variable costs.
What are the main benefits of onWith On-Demand Instances, you pay for compute capacity by the second with no long-term commitments. You have full control over its lifecycle—you decide when to launch, stop, hibernate, start, reboot, or terminate it. There is no long-term commitment required when you purchase On-Demand Instances.
What are the three main characteristics of Amazon EC2?Features of Amazon EC2
Various configurations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity for your instances, known as instance types. Secure login information for your instances using key pairs (AWS stores the public key, and you store the private key in a secure place)
Which of the below three factors determine the cost of EC2 OnThe key factors that influence AWS EC2 pricing are as follows: Region. Purchasing options. Usage duration.
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