Spot instances are instances that become available when someone purchases cloud resources but doesn't fully utilize them. Major cloud service providers offer these underutilized instances at significant discounts compared to on-demand prices. However, they come with the caveat that AWS or another cloud provider may reclaim this capacity with just 30 seconds to two minutes of notice. Consequently, spot instances are considered somewhat risky. They are most suitable for stateless, fault-tolerant, or flexible applications that can be restarted without data loss.
At Profisea Labs, our experts have developed a unique spot instance management strategy. This strategy helps you identify instances that can be converted into spot instances, offering cost-saving opportunities for your business. Thanks to Uniskai, you can efficiently manage and maintain your spot instances, minimizing downtime through proactive system actions. Our system automatically creates all necessary snapshots of instances that need to be converted to spot, saving DevOps valuable setup time. For Uniskai users, it's as simple as a one-click spot conversion.
Uniskai's spot management strategy provides recommendations for creating spot instances for various services, including EC2, ASG, EKS Node Groups, ECS on EC2, and ECS on Fargate. These instances don't have to be attached to an Autoscaling Group to become spot instances.
When you explore your spot instances, you'll find a Suggestions tab that provides information about which instances can be converted to spots. By applying all of Uniskai's suggestions, you can see the potential savings amount displayed in the bottom right corner.
Within the ‘Suggestions’ tab, you can view details about your resource type, your current price, and the estimated savings from converting an instance to a spot. You can also sort the resources by clicking on the column headers.
Clicking on the three dots allows you to access the Cloudview feature, where you can view the instance on one of our interactive diagrams.
To accept a recommendation, simply click ‘Convert to Spot.’
The Spotting policy is a feature that allows you to spot your resources based on specific parameters. Click the corresponding button to access the ‘Spotting policies’ tab.
In the ‘Spotting policy’ tab, a default policy exists, but you can create your own by clicking on the corresponding button.
Set the percentage of resources to be spotted versus the overall percentage you require and add your resources (except ES2) to the policy. You can adjust the percentage at any time.
For any resources except EC2 instances, when you convert to a spot or start managing, a pop-up window will display the assigned spotting policy. You can find more information here.
After clicking ‘Convert to Spot,’ a confirmation dialog will appear, requiring you to confirm the decision. Additionally, you will see an approximate saving amount for the specific spot instance.
You can also select multiple resources and take action on them in bulk.
If your resource is already a spot instance, you'll see the ‘Start managing’ button. When you click ‘Manage,’ the instance will be handled by Uniskai's algorithm. If a cloud provider interrupts this spot, our system will automatically recover it, preserving all customer data and settings saved in advance. This means Uniskai is dedicated to monitoring spot pricing and managing both stateless and stateful processes converted to spot without compromising performance.
Note: If you delete a spot policy with resources attached to it, those resources will revert to the Default policy.
You can also select multiple resources and perform bulk actions.
The yellow lightbulb next to your spot instance indicates that we will automatically recover your spot after an interruption.
In the ‘Managed’ tab, you can view the spots managed by Uniskai, along with their cost and current savings.
If you decide to revert a spot instance to on-demand status, simply click ‘Unspot.’
The ’Archived’ tab lists your archived instances. To bring these instances back to the ’Suggestions’ list, click ‘Unarchive.’
You can apply filters to each tab. Click ‘Filter,’ select a region, VPC item, action item, and add a tag if necessary. Then click ‘Apply.
Spot instances offer an excellent way to reduce the cost of EC2 On-Demand Instances by up to 90%. They are ideal for web services, containerized applications, or other fault-tolerant, stateless workloads. It's important to note that using such instances carries some risk, as they can be terminated at any time. However, Uniskai users can rest assured, as our platform efficiently manages spot instances to ensure the safety of your data. Resource tags are also visible
You can access the spot policy page by clicking on the policy name.
