EC2 spot pricing coming to Cluster Compute and Cluster GPU instances

AWS EC2 introduced the Cluster Compute and Cluster GPU instances few months back. Those instances are very good for high-throughput HPC applications, unfortunately, they have not been available in the spot market. I think that is about to change, the Cluster Compute and Cluster GPU instances should be available through the spot market shortly.

Over the weekend (Feb. 6, 2011), I have noticed that both cc1.4xlarge and cg1.4xlarge instances are showing up on AWS’s console when you query the price history. But that went away quickly the next day. I am guessing they were testing the features. Starting today (Feb. 8, 2011), you can query AWS API or use the AWS command line tool to see the price history for cc1.4xlarge instances. Furthermore, you can start bidding for cc1.4xlarge already (it was not possible over the weekend because the “current price” is not set for those instances).

Although there is no official announcement yet, I think it is just a matter of time. Have fun crunching through your HPC applications for cheap.