This article describes What are Spot Instances in AWS.
Amazon EC2 Spot Instances are a cost-effective way to run applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. Spot Instances allow you to request spare Amazon EC2 computing capacity at a potentially lower price compared to On-Demand instances. The pricing for Spot Instances is determined by supply and demand dynamics in the AWS cloud.
Here are key characteristics and considerations regarding Spot Instances:
- Pricing Model:
- Spot Instance pricing is based on the supply and demand for spare EC2 capacity. The prices can vary over time and are usually lower than On-Demand instance prices.
- Flexible Start and Stop:
- Spot Instances are suitable for workloads that are fault-tolerant and can be interrupted. You can use Spot Instances for various tasks such as data analysis, batch processing, rendering, and testing.
- Instance Types:
- Spot Instances are available for a wide range of EC2 instance types, allowing you to choose the type of compute resources that best meet your application requirements.
- Interruption Notice:
- Spot Instances can be interrupted by AWS with little notice (two minutes), as the capacity is reclaimed by On-Demand or Reserved Instances. AWS provides a two-minute warning before interrupting Spot Instances, allowing your applications to gracefully handle interruptions.
- Persistent Spot Requests:
- You can create persistent Spot Requests that persist across instance launches and terminations. This allows you to maintain a fleet of Spot Instances over time.
- Spot Fleets:
- Spot Fleets allow you to provision and manage a collection of Spot Instances and On-Demand Instances to optimize cost, availability, and performance.
- Spot Block Instances:
- Spot Block Instances are designed for applications with a defined duration (up to six hours) and provide more predictability in terms of availability. Users can request Spot Block Instances for a specific duration and pay a fixed price.
- Use Cases:
- Spot Instances are suitable for various use cases, including stateless web servers, containerized applications, analytics workloads, rendering, and high-performance computing (HPC) clusters.
- Instance Termination:
- Spot Instances may be terminated by AWS if the Spot price exceeds the maximum price you specified in your Spot Request. It’s essential to handle interruptions gracefully by saving the state of your applications and using mechanisms like Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling to maintain capacity.
- Integration with Auto Scaling:
- Spot Instances can be integrated with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling to automatically adjust capacity based on demand. This helps maintain application availability even when Spot Instances are interrupted.
- Spot Instance Advisor:
- The Spot Instance Advisor provides historical Spot Prices, helping you make informed decisions about the maximum price you are willing to pay for Spot Instances.
While Spot Instances offer cost savings, they are best suited for fault-tolerant, stateless, and flexible workloads. For applications that require continuous availability and cannot tolerate interruptions, On-Demand or Reserved Instances may be more appropriate.
Further Reading
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