EC2-Purchasing Options (Part-2)

In my previous blog, we discussed the fundamentals of AWS EC2, but there is a lot more to know about EC2 instances. Whether a multi-national organization or a small business Cost optimization is on everyone’s mind and it’s one of the core pillars of the AWS well-architected framework too. So let’s take a closer look at how you can optimize ec2 spending

Let’s review.

?In today’s article, I will let you know various EC2 instances purchasing options that AWS provides so you can serve your workload in the most cost-effective manner. AWS EC2 is one of the most commonly used cloud services, which is easiest and cheapest to use but when not used right, it could be expensive.

So here are a few tips on how to use EC2 effectively. Each purchasing option has its own pros and cons and can be used based on the need.

?Stay with me to know more about them

Depending on your business requirements one of these purchasing options might provide a comparative advantage over the other there is no difference in terms of the underlying hardware that is being launched only the pricing model is different. It’s important to properly understand the costs and benefits associated with each option

Let’s see how to purchase, optimize, and, manage AWS ec2 workloads at scale

Aws enables users to purchase and control their ec2 computing resources within their web-based interface.

How can I purchase AWS ec2 instances?

Aws provides various options to purchase ec2 instances.

On-demand instances are best suited for short workloads and predictable pricing. This is the most basic and least complicated option to provision ec2 instances. The important features of on-demand instances are listed below:

·????????Pay for what you use

·????????No upfront payment

·????????No long-term commitment

Recommended for short-term and uninterrupted workloads, where you can’t predict how the application will behave.

Reserved instances are the perfect fit for long workloads ( 1 year or 3 years) it is one of the easiest ways to reduce expenses, because when you reserve instances AWS offers huge discounts compared to on- demand prices, so this option is the most economical hence increasing profits.

·????????Up to 75% discount compared to on demand

·????????Pay upfront for what you use with a long-term commitment

·????????The Reserved period can be 1 or 3 years

·????????Reserve a specific instance type

·????????Reserve a specific region

·????????Recommended for steady usage applications

Convertible reserved instances long workloads with flexible instances

·????????Can change the Ec2 instance type

·????????Up to 54% discount

·????????The reservation period can be 1 or 3 years

Scheduled reserved instances launch within the time window you reserve

·????????Purchase instances that are always available on the specified recurring schedule, for a one-year term

·????????When you require a fraction of the day/week/month

·????????Pay for the time that the instances are scheduled

·????????Recommended for an application that runs during business hours or for batch processing that runs at the end of the week.

Launching Scheduled Instances

Each Scheduled Reserved instance becomes active according to the schedule that you chose when you made the purchase. You can then launch the instance by selecting it in the Console and clicking on?Launch Scheduled Instances:

Spot instances allow you to take advantage of AWS extra capacity with short workloads, for cheap, can lose instances.

·????????Request unused ec2 instances, ?which can reduce your AWS ec2 costs significantly

·????????Can get a discount of up to 90% compared to on demand

·????????You bid a price and get the instance as long as it’s under the price

·????????Price varies based on offer and demand

·????????Spot instances are reclaimed with a 2- minute notification warning when the spot price goes above your bid.

·????????Recommended for batch jobs big data analysis or workloads that are resilient to failures

·????????Not recommended for critical jobs or databases.(customer-facing, time-sensitive use cases)

?Dedicated instances In dedicated instances, no other customer will share your hardware

·????????Physical server with ec2 instance capacity fully dedicated to your use.

·????????Visibility and control over how instances are placed on the servers

·????????More expensive

·????????Useful for software that has a complicated licensing model

·????????Useful for companies that have strong regulatory or compliance needs

Saving Plans

AWS saving plans offer discounts for one or three years of committed usage, measured in USD per hour of computing power.

·????????The AWS EC2 instance savings plan helps you purchase EC2 instances at a significant discount of up to 72%.

·????????With this type of saving plan, you commit to an instance family and region but you have the flexibility to change instance size and operating system.

·????????You can achieve discounts of up to 66% with a compute saving plan, which allows for usage across ec2 instance types and regions, and also provides discounts for AWS lambda and AWS fargate.

Dedicated hosts

In this purchasing option, a physical server is allocated to you which is dedicated fully to your use.

·????????Visibility and control over how instances are placed on the server.

·????????More expensive

·????????Useful for software that has a complicated licensing model. (BYOL)

·????????Useful for companies that have strong regulatory or compliance needs

·????????Pay by the hour, for instances that run on single-tenant hardware.

There are some important points to be remembered while choosing the right ec2 purchasing option.

·????????Reserved instances can’t be canceled once purchased so make sure about your requirement for ec2 instances before reserving them.

·????????Scheduled and dedicated host purchasing options are not available in all regions so before purchasing check its availability in your region.

Capacity reservation In this purchasing option AWS reserve capacity for your EC2 instance in a specific availability zone for any duration.

·????????Capacity reservations can’t be created in placement groups.

·????????Capacity reservations can’t be used with dedicated hosts

·????????Capacity reservation metrics can be monitored in AWS cloud watch.

Conclusion:

AWS offers various types of pricing models. For optimizing cost it is essential to understand the AWS purchasing options and identify which type of pricing is best suited to meet our goals. The money you pay to consume a certain amount of resources may vary depending on which type of EC2 pricing model you use.

Hope with this blog, you will be able to identify and choose the best pricing strategy according to your requirement.

Pravin Mishra Shefali Arora Bhavesh Atara Madhura DasGupta Sinha Ruchita Tandon Satish Pandey Amit Mehta

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