We all hear how inexpensive Amazon cloud computing services are. We also hear about how many companies spin up way more Amazon EC2 compute power than they need. The net, net, net, is that Amazon, as cheap as it is, could be cheaper if companies just buy and pay for what they need.
That’s where a tool like Cloudyn’s new Reserved Instance calculator might come in handy. It will let existing or potential Amazon customers run “what if” scenarios to determine which types of Reserved Instances to buy. This type of instance, booked in 1- or 3- year time periods, can be less expensive than Amazon’s on-demand instances, but the calculation is not all that straightforward given the variables — reserved instances come in configurations for light, medium and heavy utilization, for example.
But they’re popular: Cloudyn has seen the use of RIs as a percentage of total Amazon EC2 instances soar from 29 percent to 48 percent in the last 9 months. In that time, Amazon itself launched a marketplace where customers who overindulged on their RI buys can sell off excess.
“Reserved instance types vary in term so the initial one-time fee and the later hourly rate,” said Sharon Wagner, CEO of the startup, which is based in Raanana, Israel. A lot of these factors need to be taken into account — something the calculator can do, he said.
A cottage industry has sprung up around helping AWS customers provision and configure their Amazon firepower most efficiently. Other companies in this space include Newvem, another Israeli startup.
Feature photo courtesy of Flickr user 401(K) 2012
