BREAKING: @awscloud has taken pity on us, apparently--they've released Savings Plans, which sounds like something that has to do with retirement. Fortunately it does--specifically sunsetting Reserved Instances. A thread:
I have a full analysis up at lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-begin…, but at a glance this is a win across the board for almost everyone.
Alternately, @jeffbarr has a less snarky take here: aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-…
If you've got a lot of process involved in buying RIs, nothing changes really--but you might want to start replacing some of that process.
If you're a SaaS company whose primary value-add is helping with RI planning, you probably have a giant problem. "No we don't, people give us 3% of their AWS spend for our glorious dashboards!" I bet we're about to find out!
I will now take questions from the imagined voices in my head.
Q: If RIs aren't going away, why does your headline say they're being sunset?
A: I am a troll who traffics in clickbait. RIs are still there, but it's getting eclipsed by better things. Think SimpleDB.
A: I am a troll who traffics in clickbait. RIs are still there, but it's getting eclipsed by better things. Think SimpleDB.
Q: Why do this instead of just relaxing constraints around existing RIs?
A: Because you weren't in the room with this question when the product was being built.
A: Because you weren't in the room with this question when the product was being built.
Q: What about my workloads that are busy during the day but scale down at night?
A: It must suck to be you, because this offering won't help you any more than RIs did.
A: It must suck to be you, because this offering won't help you any more than RIs did.
Q. What about AWS Lambda?
A. Show me an expensive Lambda bill compared to EC2 and then come talk to me.
A. Show me an expensive Lambda bill compared to EC2 and then come talk to me.
Q: What's going to hurt me on this one?
A: Surprisingly nothing. It's all net positive.
A: Surprisingly nothing. It's all net positive.
I now open the floor to questions from you people.
Excellent question! I'm digging now, but it would appear these are in fact scoped to account. My master payer has no Savings Plan recommendations; the subordinate accounts do. #awswishlist
This is one of the painful parts (still) with RIs and now Savings Plans. "Scale up during the day, scale down at night" means you're either overpaying for a commitment you don't use, or paying on-demand rates for peak.
Spot isn't always a fit either.
Spot isn't always a fit either.
Ah, the benefit from Savings Plans does carry across accounts, but the recommendations in Cost Explorer only apply per-account, from the looks of it.
"What about being able to sell unused RIs on the secondary market?"
True, you can't do that with Savings Plans. But you also couldn't with Convertible RIs, and the secondary market is something of a ghost town. I'd not count on it strategically...
True, you can't do that with Savings Plans. But you also couldn't with Convertible RIs, and the secondary market is something of a ghost town. I'd not count on it strategically...
AWS employees take their NDAs incredibly seriously, including the provision that applies to the CloudFormation team.
