[Starcluster] Spot Instances

[Rajat Banerjee]

Hi Austin,
I think Justin is traveling today so I will answer your question. I
use spot instances regularly. A bid price of $0.03 usually works, but
to have more confidence try 0.06.

1. Enable "experimental" in your config file.
ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL=True
save and close.

2. Start a cluster with this syntax:
starcluster start tag_name -b 0.03

Wait for some time. Mine just took 28 minutes for $0.03. Usually it is
10 minutes or less, but always slower than starting a regular price
instance.

** Sometimes the instance will be spontaneously turned off. Amazon
doesn't charge for the fractional hour if this happens. You should be
aware that the instance may disappear. They might kill your master,
they have no discretion or insight into what you're doing.

Good luck.
Raj


On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Austin Godber <godber at uberhip.com> wrote:
> Is there any documentation on using spot instances?  I only see things
> in the release notes and code.
>
> Austin
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