EC2 Instances Pricing

Question 1

List different EC2 pricing options (x7)

Answer 1

• On-demand Instances
• Reserved
• Savings Plan
• Spot Instances
• Dedicated Hosts
• Dedicated Instances
• Capacity Reservations

Question 2

List facts of EC2 On-demand (x4)

Answer 2

• Linux / Windows billing is per second after the first minute
• All other OS billing is per hour
• Has highest cost but no upfront payment
• No long term commitments

Question 3

When is it recommended to use On-demand pricing?

Answer 3

For short-term un-interrupted workloads where you can’t predict how the application will behave

Question 4

List facts of Reserved pricing (x5)

Answer 4

• You reserve a specific instance attribute (e.g. Instance type, region, tenancy, OS)
• Reservation period is either 1 or 3 years
• Payment option is no upfront, partial upfront and all upfront
• Reserved Instance is scoped to either regional or AZ
• You can but / sell reserved instances at the reserved instance marketplace

Question 5

List facts of EC2 Savings Plan (x5)

Answer 5

• Discount based on long-term usage
• Commit to certain type of usage
• Usage beyond EC2 Savings Plan is billed at On-Demand price
• Locked to specific instance family or AWS Region
• Flexible across instance size, OS or tenancy (Host, Dedicated, Default)

Question 6

List facts of EC2 Spot Instances (x4)

Answer 6

Has the most discounted price
- Can lose the instance at any point if your max price is less than current spot price
- Useful for workloads that are resilient to failure
- Not suitable for critical jobs or databases

Question 7

List facts of EC2 Dedicated Hosts (x6)

Answer 7

• Is a physical server with EC2 instance capacity fully dedicated to your use
• Allows you to address compliance requirements and use your existing server-bound software licenses
• Purchasing options are On-demand or Reserved
• Most expensive option
• Useful for software that have complicated licensing models (BYOL)
• Useful for companies that have strong regulatory or compliance needs

Question 8

List facts of EC2 Dedicated Instances (x3)

Answer 8

• Instances that run on hardware that’s dedicated to you
• May share hardware with other instances in the same account
• Control over Instance placement (can move hardware after start / stop)

Question 9

List facts of about EC2 Capacity Reservations (x5)

Answer 9

• Reserves On-demand instances for a specific AZ for any duration
• Always have access to EX2 capacity when you need it
• No time commitment, no billing discount
• Charged On-demand rate whether or not you run instances
• Suitable for short-term, uninterrupted workloads that need to be in a specific AZ