Cloud Computing: Amazon Launches Its Most Affordable EC2 Instances Yet, But There’s A Caveat

Grazed from TechCrunch. Author: Frederic Lardinois.

Amazon today launched its most affordable instances for its EC2 cloud computing service yet. Starting at just $0.013 per hour ($9.50 per month) for on-demand access (reserved instances are even cheaper), these new so-called T2 instances come with a caveat, however.

By default, they can only handle a relatively modest amount of computation. Indeed, the small t2.micro instance only runs at about 10 percent of it maximum power. Amazon, however, gives you a set number of credits per day that you can use to get full bursts of CPU power for a limited time…

For a t2.micro instance, you earn six CPU credits per hour (the t2.small and t2.medium instances get 12 and 24 credits/hour respectively). Those six credits are enough to run the instance at its 10 percent baseline performance. Sometimes, however, you don’t even need that much power, so any extra credit you don’t need is stored and you can then use that to run a process at higher speeds later in the day…

Read more from the source @ http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/01/amazon-launches-its-most-affordable-ec2-instances-yet-but-theres-a-caveat/