Innovation in industry: revolution 4.0 and modernization trends
11 Aug 2023
March 2018 | by Sky.One Solutions
Amazon defines among its priorities, regarding cloud computing, items such as cutting-edge technology, information security and cost reduction that makes it possible for its customers to migrate to the cloud. Therefore, the concern, within a constant goal for improvements, to offer new products and services. Then comes the AWS Spot solution.
According to Amazon's own definition, AWS Spot EC2 instances are "the extra computational capacity in the AWS Cloud, available at deep discounts compared to the price of On-Demand instances". The objective is to optimize the existing infrastructure in Amazon's cloud, allowing its customers to have cost savings that can reach 90%.
In summary, AWS Spot EC2 instances from Amazon are an option that allows users to use servers that, at certain times, do not have a demand for use at scale, in return, their values for use are reduced. Amazon's idea is to flexibly sell extra capacity.
AWS Spot instances are not for continuous use, as the objective is to use idle computing capacity. When operational demand arises, Amazon reallocates the servers for the use of other customers according to needs. The parameter for the change to occur is in accordance with the prices applied by each type of instance.
As you might have guessed, AWS Spot instances are not for high availability needs. When requested by Amazon, customers receive a prior notification two minutes before it is used in a higher priority demand.
The recommendation to use AWS Spot instances does not apply to high-risk, real-time or mission-critical solutions. The common usage applied for this type of server is high performance computing (HPC) where companies who are performing financial or scientific analysis for a short period of time.
Another example recommended by Amazon is using Spot instances in test and development environments, image rendering and video transcoding, machine learning, among others.
Among the benefits of using Amazon Spot instances is the integration with internal cloud services, such as auto scaling, AWS Batch, AWS SDK for Java and .Net, as well as services external to AWS such as Jenkins, Bamboo and others.
The difference between AWS Spot instances and On-Demand instances is basically that Spot can only be used if servers are available. That's not to say Amazon customers can't be trusted to use these assets in production. There are several strategies that can be adopted to make smart and efficient use of Amazon's servers that fit this criteria.
Keep following us on our blog and learn more about AWS Spot instances, how to apply them in your company's operating environment with the advantage of further reducing IT infrastructure costs.
This content was produced by SkyOne's team of cloud and digital transformation experts.