I can't give any benchmarks, but I was doing a compile (openssh) the other day, and I noticed something peculiar. I started the ./configure, and it blasted thr

I can't give any benchmarks, but I was doing a compile (openssh) the other day, and I noticed something peculiar. I started the ./configure, and it blasted through 40 or 50 checks almost instantly, then stopped. Suddenly, it started taking about 3-5 seconds for each check (i.e. 'check for blarg in -lfoo'). For the rest of the compile, it was like I'd gone back in time ten years; incredibly slow. Checking top, it showed the %steal at 99.5-100% - the host system was scheduling almost no CPU at all to my machine. Playing around, I found that you basically get a specific allotment of CPU cycles per a certain amount of time, and once you run out you don't get any more for a while (other than the bare minimum to keep the server working). This makes it great for 'bursty' load cases, but after you burst burst, they cut you off, so it's terrible if you suddenly get a sustained burst of traffic. It's so bad that I spun up a clone of the machine, compiled SSH there, and then spun it down afterwards, which turned out to take easily half the time as compiling it on the micro instance itself. So: great for personal blogs; terrible for suddenly getting traffic to your personal blogs.