Debunked: reserve Instance reselling on AWS is not going away!

Big news broke this week when AWS announced that as of January 15th, 2024 they intend on removing the ability to resell Reserve Instances (RIs). Many were shocked since this is one of the main mechanisms to capture substantial cloud cost savings opportunities.?

Thankfully, this is only partially true. After contacting AWS support directly, we learned that this ban is only for discounted RIs. These special discounted RIs are accessible only through the Enterprise Discount Program (EDP), which allows for a flat discount for long-term spend commitments from organizations that have a track record of substantial spending.

AWS gave this explanation for the change in policy:?

“The statement given under our AWS Service Terms [ 5.6.1. section ] explains-- You can resell an EC2 Reserved Instance that you previously purchased through the RI Marketplace. You may not resell an EC2 Reserved Instance that you purchased through a discount program (Reserved Instance Volume Discounts or otherwise) without obtaining our prior approval.”

What does this mean for cost optimization products like the ones Forma Cloud offers??

It means that we are still going to be able to deliver near 30% cost savings to our customers despite the policy change. Only discounted RI’s are going to be banned from resale. Our Autopilot product which creates cost optimization opportunities through the purchase and resale of RI’s will still work fully autonomously even with this change.

Contact us here to learn more.