Performance evaluation of bidding price for Spot Instances on Amazon EC2

Abstract

Amazon EC2 offers surplus instances, called Spot Instances, to consumers at a discounted price. Due to the nature of surplus resources, Spot prices change dynamically according to long-term demand trends. Consumers bid for Spot Instances and are allocated an instance if their bid exceeds the Spot price. On the other hand, if the bidding price falls below the Spot price, the instance is deallocated. Therefore, the setting of the bidding price significantly affects the availability of Spot Instances. In this study, by employing 10 types of bidding prices for Spot Instances and evaluating the usage time, we demonstrate that the availability of Spot Instances depends on the bidding price.