AWS reserved instances – when is it cheaper?
Few months ago AWS published a new reserved instances proposition. While there’s a lot of data on their web site it escapes me why would they leave out an important piece of information: When do the reserved instance deals become cheaper than standard allocation? Below is a graph for the yearly costs of all instance types, comparing standard and reserved costs. The simple answer is that reserved instances will become cheaper after 4.5 months of usage for the yearly reservation (constant or variable usage), and 7 months for the three year deal. Reserving machines, for constant usage, will save you 44% on costs for one year and 56% for three years making TCO even cheaper, as expected from the cloud computing industry.

This blog is a space for my thoughts, ideas, concept development, observed oddities exploration but mainly for much needed RANTING space from a frustrated penguin against the powers that be. Long live the yellow beak!