5 ms·

Pretty reasonable pricing in return for the preemptible nature. Dividing the numbers on the pricing page [1]: If you use them as a replacement for occasional (f

by mjn 11y ago

Pretty reasonable pricing in return for the preemptible nature. Dividing the numbers on the pricing page [1]: If you use them as a replacement for occasional (full-price) instances, it's a 70% discount across the board. If you use them as a replacement for mostly-on instances that would qualify for the sustained-usage discount, it's a 57% discount on top of that. So for example an always-on n1-standard-1 goes from about $25/mo to $11/mo. That ends up actually being cheaper than an equivalent DigitalOcean server, if your workload is ok with being preempted. [1] https://cloud.google.com/compute/#pricing https://cloud.google.com/compute/#pricing

MichaelGG 11y ago
I think they don't allow you to run for more than 24-hours straight though. Probably to make sure people aren't unhappily surprised when they do need to preempt.
- boulos 11y ago
  That's exactly right: I don't want you to be surprised when a few weeks after we've landed a lot of capacity that you can't run things for a week straight. If you're interested we explained some of this in an interview on InfoQ: http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/05/google-preemptible-vm http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/05/google-preemptible-vm
boulos 11y ago
I personally prefer to think of the 1 to 1.75 cents per core-hour as being competitive with "roll your own": if you're thinking about building out more servers or using preemptible, I think preemptible comes out ahead a lot. The distinction though is that these are from our spare capacity, so it's not a replacement for a 24x7 anything (whether that's our regular VMs or a DO droplet). But if you're prepared for disruptions, come and play!
- mjn 11y ago
  That's a good point, and sort of what I was using the monthly rate to eyeball. I think in (amortized) monthly costs for other ways of provisioning bulk computation, e.g. owning+powering your own hardware, renting a dedicated server, or VPSs. Not really equivalent, since those are better options if 24/7 uptime is needed, while a physically owned server or rented dedicated server are poorly priced when only occasional usage is needed. But I have a feel for what bulk compute currently costs me per-month with full utilization, as a starting point for comparing other options.

by mjn 11y ago

MichaelGG 11y ago

I think they don't allow you to run for more than 24-hours straight though. Probably to make sure people aren't unhappily surprised when they do need to preempt.

boulos 11y ago
That's exactly right: I don't want you to be surprised when a few weeks after we've landed a lot of capacity that you can't run things for a week straight. If you're interested we explained some of this in an interview on InfoQ: http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/05/google-preemptible-vm http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/05/google-preemptible-vm

boulos 11y ago

I personally prefer to think of the 1 to 1.75 cents per core-hour as being competitive with "roll your own": if you're thinking about building out more servers or using preemptible, I think preemptible comes out ahead a lot. The distinction though is that these are from our spare capacity, so it's not a replacement for a 24x7 anything (whether that's our regular VMs or a DO droplet). But if you're prepared for disruptions, come and play!

mjn 11y ago
That's a good point, and sort of what I was using the monthly rate to eyeball. I think in (amortized) monthly costs for other ways of provisioning bulk computation, e.g. owning+powering your own hardware, renting a dedicated server, or VPSs. Not really equivalent, since those are better options if 24/7 uptime is needed, while a physically owned server or rented dedicated server are poorly priced when only occasional usage is needed. But I have a feel for what bulk compute currently costs me per-month with full utilization, as a starting point for comparing other options.