AWS Reserved Instance marketplace

Amazon has set up a plce where you can buy and sell reserved instances.  This helps in getting rid of reserved instances you may no longer need.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/reserved-instances/marketplace/ [1]

Selling

I am more interested in buying a partial reserved instance than selling them.   So I will not be going over selling, if you want to sell a reserved instance this video by AWS will show you how to

Amazon charges 12% of the selling price,  you can only sell your remaining months left.

Buying

Amazon has a video for this as well.

But, here is my example

First go to http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/reserved-instances/marketplace/

Click on Sign up Now

You may need to log in with your username/password

Now you will get a confirmation email

Open the EC2 console

 

Click on Reserved Instances, and click on Purchase Reserved Instances.

This search screen comes up

I am only interested in buying short term ec2 instances from third party sellers. 

I selected

Platform:                    Linux/Unix

Instance Type:             t1.micro

Availability Zone:       Any    

Then I selected

Term:                           1 month – 6 Months

Tenancy:                      Default

Offering Type:            Heavy

Click on Search

Two different third party sellers show up.  Both have the same term 4 months.   One is cheaper at $17.00,  the hourly rate is always what amazon specified.   One is in the us-east-1d zone and the other in the 1b.

Looking at the normal 1 year price of $62 up front (as of 12/21/2012)

This would break down to $5.16 a month.  For 4 months that would be $20.67.  So the $17.00 is a good deal over what amazon directly charges.  The $20.64 is almost exactly what amazon charges but with a shorter term commitment.

Looking at the other site one has a 7 available and the other 8.

Enter the desired amount you want and add it to your cart.

Then click View Cart

Now click Purchase.

That is it

Command line

For those of you like me who like using the command line tools.  There is a way to check availability of reserved instances

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/ApiReference-cmd-DescribeReservedInstancesOfferings.html [3]  Using the ec2-describe-reserved-instances-offerings command

Here is an example

> ec2-describe-reserved-instances-offerings -t t1.micro --offering-type "Heavy Utilization" -z us-east-1a -d "Linux/UNIX (Amazon VPC)" --max-duration 6 --headers

This will only look for

t1.micro

Heavy Utilization

us-east-1a zone

Only Linux for a VPC types

With a maximum duration of 6 months

> ec2-describe-reserved-instances-offerings -t t1.micro --offering-type "Heavy Utilization" -z us-east-1a -d "Linux/UNIX" --max-duration 6 --headers

This is the same command but searches for non VPC instances

Here are the results

It may take a little effort but its a nice way to save some money

References

[1]  Amazon Reserved Instance marketplace

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/reserved-instances/marketplace/       

Visited 12/2012

[2]  Selling in the Amazon EC2 Reserved Instance Marketplace

       http://youtu.be/DJGqqq9Y6iU

Visited 12/2012