RIs are the most used cost saving mechanism in AWS. It is vital to use them effectively for optimal monetary savings. They can be modified depending on purchase types that suits your usage needs. Unlike on-demand which has pay as you go pricing, Reserve Instances let you pay in advance. As a result, you pay a much lower amount (than on-demand) for a period of 1 to 3 years.
With RIs, you can optimize AWS compute capacity at a discounted price. According to AWS, using Reserved Instances could result in savings of over 50% when compared to on-demand costs. But RIs can only help you if you know how to smartly manage and plan them. Ask yourself: Do you know what RI plan to choose? Do you know what instance type and commitment duration to select? Managing RIs can be a challenge if you don’t know the best practices to manage them. Make sure to have a good managing strategy for the three biggest RI challenges you’ll face: Utilization, Cost allocation, and Complexity of managing large numbers.
Here is a list of things you might be doing wrong with your RI management
- Mismatch of RIs
- Unutilized RIs
- Not using RI pricing for on-demand instances
- 1 month expiring RIs
- 7 day expiring RIs
Need more help? A well maneuvered AWS Reserved Instance management can help you in reducing overall cloud spend. Learn how to make AWS Reserved Instance Management Easy with Botmetric’s Smart RI here.
