@inproceedings{126f48d7fac0460eb0faf204a3ddadb4,
title = "Deconstructing Amazon EC2 spot instance pricing",
abstract = "Cloud providers possessing large quantities of spare capacity must either incentivize clients to purchase it or suffer losses. Amazon is the first cloud provider to address this challenge, by allowing clients to bid on spare capacity and by granting resources to bidders while their bids exceed a periodically changing spot price. Amazon publicizes the spot price but does not disclose how it is determined. By analyzing the spot price histories of Amazon's EC2 cloud, we reverse engineer how prices are set and construct a model that generates prices consistent with existing price traces. We find that prices are usually not market-driven as sometimes previously assumed. Rather, they are typically generated at random from within a tight price interval via a dynamic hidden reserve price. Our model could help clients make informed bids, cloud providers design profitable systems, and researchers design pricing algorithms.",
keywords = "Amazon EC2, Cloud, Spot instance, Spot price",
author = "Ben-Yehuda, \{Orna Agmon\} and Muli Ben-Yehuda and Assaf Schuster and Dan Tsafrir",
year = "2011",
doi = "10.1109/CloudCom.2011.48",
language = "English",
isbn = "9780769546223",
series = "Proceedings - 2011 3rd IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science, CloudCom 2011",
publisher = "IEEE Computer Society",
pages = "304--311",
booktitle = "Proceedings - 2011 3rd IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science, CloudCom 2011",
address = "United States",
note = "2011 3rd IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science, CloudCom 2011 ; Conference date: 29-11-2011 Through 01-12-2011",
}