| TR#: | CS-2011-09 |
| Class: | CS |
| Title: | Deconstructing Amazon EC2 Spot Instance Pricing |
| Authors: | Orna Agmon Ben-Yehuda, Muli Ben-Yehuda, Assaf Schuster, Dan Tsafrir |
| CS-2011-09.pdf | |
| PDF - Revised | CS-2011-09.revised.pdf |
| Abstract: | Cloud providers possessing large quantities of
spare capacity must either incentivize clients to purchase it
or suffer losses. Amazon is the first cloud provider to address
this challenge, by allowing clients to bid on spare capacity
and by granting resources to bidders while their bids exceed
a periodically changing spot price. Amazon publicizes the spot
price but does not disclose how it is determined.
By analyzing the spot price histories of Amazon’s EC2 cloud, we reverse engineer how prices are set and construct a model that generates prices consistent with existing price traces. We find that prices are usually not market-driven as sometimes previously assumed. Rather, they are typically generated at random from within a tight price interval via a dynamic hidden reserve price. Our model could help clients make informed bids, cloud providers design profitable systems, and researchers design pricing algorithms. |
| Copyright | The above paper is copyright by the Technion, Author(s), or others. Please contact the author(s) for more information |
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