Preemptible instances (like spot instances) provide customers a cost-optimized way to run workloads that run periodically or for short periods and don’t require continuous availability. From batch jobs like video encoding or machine learning inference to scale tests and massively parallel simulations, you can run a diverse set of workloads on instances with lower availability guarantees.
Earlier this year, we added support for all Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) virtual machine (VM) shapes. We’re continuing to make improvements to make it easier for customers to use the product.
What are preemptible instances?
Preemptible instances are the same as on-demand instances, with one exception: If compute capacity is needed elsewhere, OCI can delete preemptible instances after a short period. Preemptible instances run on unused on-demand capacity, enabling OCI to offer preemptible instances to you at a 50% discount compared to on-demand rates. OCI can delete preemptible instances if an increase in requests for on-demand instances occurs. Preemptible instances run on the same hardware, offer the same performance, and are managed using the same tools as on-demand instances.
Pricing for preemptible instances is simple: Always 50% off your on-demand instance rates. This discount stacks with other discounts you have, such as Universal Credit (UCM) negotiated rates. Other cloud providers offer a similar product called spot instances, which change price when demand changes. This change can make forecasting costs difficult and lead to billing surprises when spot instance prices unexpectedly approach on-demand prices.
With OCI preemptible instances, you always know exactly how much each instance costs: You get 50% off the on-demand price you pay all the time. Combined with OCI’s already-low instance prices, OCI preemptible instances are significantly cheaper than spot instances. For example, an OCI E4 Flex 1-OCPU, 8-GB instance is 155% cheaper than Amazon Web Service’s m6a.large spot price. Tracking spot prices can also be complicated because the prices vary by instance type and region. OCI makes your life easy: Preemptible instances are always 50% off the price you pay, regardless of shape or region.
Preemptible instances deletion notification
OCI sends a notice through the Events service before deleting a preemptible instance. You can monitor these notices to act if OCI deletes an instance anywhere in your tenancy, such as using a function to request a new preemptible instance. OCI also updates instance metadata before deleting an instance, which you can monitor using the instance metadata service on your instances.
With this new release, we have increased the deletion notice timer from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Customers that run workloads need a longer time to gracefully shut down their instance or pause their workloads and complete tasks, such as preserving instance state information and redirecting traffic. This increased notification time matches the longest timer available among public cloud providers today.
For more information and release notes, see the documentation about tracking instance events.
Learn more about preemptible instances
Preemptible instances are available in all public regions on all virtual machine shapes. For more information, see the product documentation about preemptible instances. You can try out preemptible instances and other Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services by signing up for a trial account with $300 in credits and let us know your feedback.