If you are using Amazon Web Services, understanding the nuts and bolts of AWS EC2 instance type pricing is pivotal for you. Why? No two organizations are alike. And every organization has unique computing and storage needs. By knowing the key technicalities, you can only pay for the EC2 Instance Types that fit your business scenarios rather than paying more.

AWS EC2 Instance Types – Unboxed

AWS, long time ago, classified different EC2 instance types (“virtual servers”) by defining an “Amazon EC2 Compute Unit” (ECU). This classification till date helps developers to compare the CPU capacity between different EC2 instance types. AWS used many benchmarks to ensure that ECUs were consistently and predictably measured EC2 CPU capacity, regardless of the underlying hardware. It gave a relative measure of the integer processing power of an AWS EC2 Instance Type.

For new prospective AWS customers, this might be a difficult concept to grasp. Why? For the reason that more traditional deployments, like those on VMWare, were always declared with vCPU (Virtual CPU). The FAQs page on AWS has the complete information on this.

Rather than diving deep into this concept, today, in this blog post, I would like to talk more about ECU and vCPU and how the pricing points differ for both.

As cited on Amazon, EC2 provides a wide selection of instance types optimized to fit different use cases. Instance types comprise varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity. This type classification gives you the flexibility to choose the appropriate mix of resources for your applications. Each instance type includes one or more instance sizes, allowing you to scale your resources to the requirements of your target workload.

In April 2014, AWS moved towards using vCPU based measure. This compares EC2 Instance sizes as CPU (Clock Speed), the number of CPUs, RAM, Storage, etc. And each vCPU is a hyperthread of an Intel Xeon core for M4, M3, C4, C3, R3, HS1, G2, I2, and D2.

The M3 Instances may also launch as an Intel Xeon E5-2670 (Sandy Bridge) Processor running at 2.6 GHz. While the AVX, AVX2, and enhanced networking are only available on instances launched with HVM AMIs (Amazon Machine Image).

Now, take a look below at AWS EC2 Instance Type Matrix:

Figure: AWS EC2 Instance Type Matrix Using vCPU

There’s a wide variety of EC2 instance types optimized to fit different use cases, combining varying CPU, memory, storage and networking capacities. This classification will help you to choose the right instance type for your particular business needs. Each instance type includes 1+ instance sizes to allow for scalability.

From the above figure and the above classification information, you can get an idea as to how the pricing differs. To know more on this topic read the Amazon documentation.

It might seem daunting when trying to figure out which EC2 instance type you should launch. But that’s where Botmetric comes to your rescue! You will be notified in the “Cloud Insight” view when you should scale down your instance sizes to save money. You also have the EC2 vs. vCPU-based Cost Analytics view in the Cost Analytics Dashboard to monitor your usage and tailor your vCPUs with a fine-tooth comb!

Only pay for the EC2 instance types that fit your business scenario.

Have you faced any challenges with your AWS cloud infrastructure? As a cloud solutions provider, we can help. Just drop us a mail or get in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

This insightful blog article is written by our Chief Evangelist Kim Schmidt.