New AWS EC2 instances (opens in new tab)

It will be interesting to see how these new boxes handle after the CPU burst is over. T1 micro's were notoriously unreliable because of the CPU limitations.

I find that bit a bit of a shame as we deploy using local instance storage only and avoid EBS.

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We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Amazon EC2 T2 instances. T2 instances are a new low-cost, General Purpose instance type that are designed to provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst above the baseline. With On-Demand Instance prices starting at $0.013 per hour ($9.50 per month), T2 instances are the lowest-cost Amazon EC2 instance option and are ideal for web servers, developer environments, and small databases. T2 instances are for workloads that don't use the full CPU often or consistently, but occasionally need to burst to higher CPU performance. Many applications such as web servers, developer environments, and small databases don't need consistently high levels of CPU, but benefit significantly from having full access to very fast CPUs when they need them. T2 instances are engineered specifically for these use cases.

T2 instances are available in three sizes: t2.micro, t2.small, and t2.medium and work well in combination with Amazon EBS General Purpose (SSD) volumes for instance block storage.

T2 instances are backed by the latest Intel Xeon processors with clock speeds up to 3.3GHz during burst periods. If you are currently using T1 or M1 instances, we encourage you to try T2 instances for better performance for many applications at a lower cost.

T2 instances are available in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Australia (Sydney), and Brazil (Sao Paulo) regions and are coming soon to all other AWS Regions. T2 instances can be purchased as On-Demand and Reserved Instances. To learn more about Amazon EC2 T2 instances, see the Amazon EC2 details page.

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Also, at this moment these new instances don't seem to be available yet, at least not in EU.

How do Amazon handle the capacity planning internally? With a fixed resource allotment it seems pretty easy to figure out. Just divide the total capacity by the number of guests on an instance. With this setup presumably either, there are less guests on a host (to allow for more headroom), or if everyone bursts at the same time you don't actually get any additional capacity.

I suppose Amazon have a huge amount of data regarding how machines are actually used. They must have a fairly good idea of how much of the available power is used on average / other usage patterns that emerge. Would be very interesting data to look at.

It also begs another question. If you have seamless access to this additional capacity once you've earned the credits, could they introduce a system where you could have pay as you go access? I guess it's not that easy because at least the credit system puts a limit on how much each guest can burst.

New Low Cost EC2 Instances with Burstable Performance

http://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/low-cost-burstable-ec2-insta...

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

"T2 instances are Burstable Performance Instances that provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst above the baseline. The baseline performance and ability to burst are governed by CPU Credits. Each T2 instance receives CPU Credits continuously at a set rate depending on the instance size. T2 instances accrue CPU Credits when they are idle, and use CPU credits when they are active. T2 instances are a good choice for workloads that don’t use the full CPU often or consistently, but occasionally need to burst (e.g. web servers, developer environments and small databases). "