Different Instance Types

The Calculator

It is easy to mess up on the AWS calculator. Here are the top 4 things that I have gotten wrong on various occasions.  Whenever I work with customers keen on doing their own pricing, these are the things that bite them most often.

  1. Pick the correct OS – Windows versus Linux.  – It is very easy to default to Linux – and not realize that you are pricing for linux (for e.g. your use case may be for something that only runs on windows…).

select_instance_type

  1. Check the DEDICATED instance box (bottom right corner) for your selected instance. You do not want your infrastructure instances to be SHARED instances.

  2. Pick the right combo of CPU and RAM. This is what bites most people – make sure you look at the vCPU column along with the Memory Column. A lot of people simply read the memory requirements – but fail to see that there are several possible vCPUs for that amount of memory. Your cost can increase by a multiple of 3 if you select a higher vCPU than needed.

Cores_Memory_Combo

 

4.  To really save on your pricing,  change your BILLING option.  Pick a 3 year upfront reservation – instead of the On-demand billing. This can lower your costs by a factor of 3 – provided you are willing to pay for 3 years up front.

ondemand_billing_versus_3year_reservation

 

NOTE: While you will pay the bulk of the cost UPFRONT here, there will still be a (small) MONTHLY cost. Do not forget to factor that into your total cost.

Hope that helps…There are still other tweaks you can make to change your pricing – but these are the 4 big ones…

Anuj holds professional certifications in Google Cloud, AWS as well as certifications in Docker and App Performance Tools such as New Relic. He specializes in Cloud Security, Data Encryption and Container Technologies.

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Anuj Varma – who has written posts on Anuj Varma, Hands-On Technology Architect, Clean Air Activist.

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