Not only do they send you an e-mail about this, they even have an API call for it: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/monitoring-instances-statu

Not only do they send you an e-mail about this, they even have an API call for it: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/monitoring-instances-status-check_sched.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/monitorin... Anyone who's surprised that this happens has not used EC2 very much. It is this way by design.