The 600 USD command
I recently switched an Amazon instance to the new Amazon reserved instances price scheme. At first I was confused how to do that. Amazon doesn’t provide an interface for buying a preserved. In fact you have to use the EC2 tools and command line to do. I am comfortable to use the command line, however, I never used the command line to buy something.
First, you need to install the EC2 tools. You can find a guide here. After installing the EC2 tools, the following command lists all reserved instances:
ec2-describe-reserved-instances-offerings
This results in the following output:
OFFERING e5a2ff3b-f6eb-4b4e-83f8-b879d7060257 us-east-1c c1.medium 3y 1000.0 0.06 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 248e7b75-afbc-4724-82b2-d78353299433 us-east-1b c1.medium 3y 1000.0 0.06 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 60dcfab3-d5b8-4d3d-9f38-480b34d38239 us-east-1a c1.medium 3y 1000.0 0.06 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING c48ab04c-42bb-4e5b-8c1b-c015f9604dd5 us-east-1c c1.medium 1y 650.0 0.06 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING ceb6a579-b754-4a50-a53e-36efdb8eb28b us-east-1b c1.medium 1y 650.0 0.06 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 3a98bf7d-b94b-412a-8de5-8c77dfcc4ffd us-east-1a c1.medium 1y 650.0 0.06 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 248e7b75-ed4c-4ca7-b42b-d14ee74a3360 us-east-1b c1.xlarge 3y 4000.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING ceb6a579-1420-4728-ace3-9cb73934afcf us-east-1c c1.xlarge 3y 4000.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 60dcfab3-97dd-421b-8f75-c126de7741ce us-east-1a c1.xlarge 3y 4000.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING ceb6a579-f9b0-4bff-994c-c62030080d27 us-east-1b c1.xlarge 1y 2600.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 4b2293b4-cb88-480b-999d-a17683faa92f us-east-1c c1.xlarge 1y 2600.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 60dcfab3-fa53-4d32-97cc-2fd1a0a8c0ac us-east-1a c1.xlarge 1y 2600.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 649fd0c8-8bd3-489e-904c-4c5dfcb131ea us-east-1b m1.large 3y 2000.0 0.12 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 248e7b75-5324-48e5-9749-fd3b4de01829 us-east-1a m1.large 3y 2000.0 0.12 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING d586503b-6876-4d40-8f94-1b2dde6b0ead us-east-1c m1.large 3y 2000.0 0.12 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 248e7b75-a817-462e-996a-8ea7b4810a0e us-east-1b m1.large 1y 1300.0 0.12 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING c48ab04c-280c-4879-8119-63ac87002498 us-east-1a m1.large 1y 1300.0 0.12 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 649fd0c8-4af1-4f63-bbdb-1a05951886a4 us-east-1c m1.large 1y 1300.0 0.12 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 3a98bf7d-96c3-4d2f-a263-123fa6b46d61 us-east-1b m1.small 3y 500.0 0.03 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 248e7b75-0799-4a55-a0cb-f8d28eb11921 us-east-1a m1.small 3y 500.0 0.03 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 438012d3-d93c-4fbd-a245-33b4bf0930ec us-east-1c m1.small 3y 500.0 0.03 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 60dcfab3-a56c-4092-8c90-3677e9da02b7 us-east-1b m1.small 1y 325.0 0.03 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 4b2293b4-1e6c-4eb3-ab74-4493c0e57987 us-east-1a m1.small 1y 325.0 0.03 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING c48ab04c-c057-457e-a4d8-a0f172f4db2d us-east-1c m1.small 1y 325.0 0.03 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING c48ab04c-6769-4bc1-966e-f7b0326001dd us-east-1b m1.xlarge 3y 4000.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING 649fd0c8-4767-43a1-a530-b4a1f0c08c31 us-east-1a m1.xlarge 3y 4000.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING d586503b-20ad-4beb-bc88-60a1333c2b98 us-east-1c m1.xlarge 3y 4000.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING e5a2ff3b-8646-4f48-912a-aaeba5823c73 us-east-1b m1.xlarge 1y 2600.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING c48ab04c-63ab-4cd6-b8f5-978a29eb9bcc us-east-1a m1.xlarge 1y 2600.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
OFFERING c48ab04c-119e-41f1-8b0f-b83c4fc4f869 us-east-1c m1.xlarge 1y 2600.0 0.24 Linux/UNIX
So, to reserve one small instance in the us-east-1a region, just type
ec2-purchase-reserved-instances-offering -c 1 -o 248e7b75-0799-4a55-a0cb-f8d28eb11921
then press enter and you are credited 500 USD plus 100 USD taxes. However, in 300 days the command pays for itself.
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Tags: AWS, Cloud Computing, Example
