AWS Batch Processing: Cost-Effective Instance Option for Interruption-Tolerant Workloads

Cost-Effective Instance Option for Interruption-Tolerant Workloads

Question

A company is planning to host an application that will be installed on a set of EC2 Instances.

The application is a batch processing system.

The system will be run on weekdays at certain times or even on the weekends.

These batch processing workloads basically process data that business Intelligence applications will consume then.

Which of the following is the most cost-effective option for the underlying instance provided an occasional interruption in the batch processing bearable?

Answers

Explanations

Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer

A. B. C. D.

Correct Answer: A.

The AWS Documentation mentions the following.

A Spot Instance is an unused EC2 instance that is available for less than the On-Demand price.

Because Spot Instances enable you to request unused EC2 instances at steep discounts, you can significantly lower your Amazon EC2 costs.

The hourly price for a Spot Instance is called a Spot price.

The Spot price of each instance type in each Availability Zone is set by Amazon EC2, and adjusted gradually based on the long-term supply of and demand for Spot Instances.

Your Spot Instance runs whenever capacity is available, and the maximum price per hour for your request exceeds the Spot price.

Spot Instances are a cost-effective choice if you can be flexible about when your applications run and if your applications can be interrupted.

For example, Spot Instances are well-suited for data analysis, batch jobs, background processing, and optional tasks.

The other types of instances would not be cost-effective in this situation.

For more information on spot instances, please refer to the below URL-

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-spot-instances.html

For a cost-effective option for hosting an application that will run at certain times or even on weekends, with occasional interruptions bearable, the most suitable option is Spot Instances.

Spot Instances allow you to bid on unused EC2 instances and you only pay the spot price that is determined by supply and demand in the market. This makes them the most cost-effective option for hosting your application. However, because you are bidding on unused capacity, there is a risk of interruptions if the spot price exceeds your bid price. These interruptions are usually rare and brief, but they can occur. Since the batch processing system can tolerate interruptions, Spot Instances can be an appropriate choice.

Reserved Instances are another option where you can reserve EC2 instances for a period of time and receive a discounted hourly rate. Reserved Instances can be a good choice if you know that you will need a certain number of instances running all the time, but they are less flexible than Spot Instances since you have committed to a certain number of instances for a period of time.

Dedicated Hosts and Dedicated Instances are designed for compliance requirements or licensing requirements that need a physical EC2 instance. Dedicated Hosts are physical servers that are fully dedicated to your use, while Dedicated Instances are instances that run on hardware that is dedicated to your use. These options are more expensive than Spot Instances and Reserved Instances and are not necessary for batch processing workloads.

Therefore, the best cost-effective option for this use case is Spot Instances.