ec2 24/7 Spot-Request Server

While Spot Instances can offer significant cost savings, they may not be the ideal choice for a 24/7 Minecraft server due to their potential for interruption. However, there are ways to combine Spot and On-Demand instances to achieve your goal of continuous availability while still benefiting from cost savings when possible.

One approach you could consider is using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling with a mixed instances policy. This allows you to create a group that uses both Spot and On-Demand instances. You can configure it to maintain at least one On-Demand instance at all times to ensure continuous availability, while also leveraging Spot Instances when they are available to reduce costs.

Here's how you might set this up:

1. Create an Auto Scaling group with a minimum capacity of 1 instance.
2. Configure the group to use a mix of Spot and On-Demand instances.
3. Set a base capacity of 1 On-Demand instance to ensure you always have at least one server running.
4. Configure the remaining capacity to use Spot Instances when available.

This approach ensures that you always have at least one On-Demand instance running your Minecraft server, even if Spot Instances are not available. When Spot Instances are available, you can potentially scale up at a lower cost or replace the On-Demand instance with a Spot Instance for cost savings.

Keep in mind that while this method provides continuous availability, there may still be brief interruptions if you need to transition from a Spot Instance back to an On-Demand instance. To mitigate this, you could consider using Amazon EBS volumes for persistent storage of your Minecraft world data, allowing for quicker recovery when instances change.

Remember that Spot Instance pricing is based on supply and demand, so the actual cost savings will vary. It's important to monitor your usage and costs to ensure this approach remains cost-effective for your specific use case.
Sources
Amazon EC2 Spot Instances - Product Details
Create a Spot Instance request - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Hi LH,

Great question!

Yes, there is a way to use Spot Instances for cost savings and automatically fall back to On-Demand if Spot capacity isn't available. This is done using an EC2 Auto Scaling Group with a mixed instances policy.

Here's what to do: Create a Launch Template for your Minecraft EC2 instance.

Use EBS for storage so your world data persists, even if the instance is replaced.

Create an Auto Scaling Group (ASG) with:

Minimum capacity: 1

Maximum capacity: 1 (or more, if you want scaling)

Base capacity: 0

On-Demand allocation strategy: "prioritized"

Spot allocation strategy: "lowest-price" or "capacity-optimized"

In your Mixed Instances Policy, configure:

Instance types: Include both Spot and On-Demand instance types

Instances distribution: Use "OnDemandPercentageAboveBaseCapacity": 0 to prefer Spot first, but fallback to On-Demand when no Spot is available

Why this works: The ASG tries to launch a Spot instance first.

If there's no Spot capacity, it will launch an On-Demand instance instead.

If Spot becomes available again later, you can even set up instance refresh to switch back and save more.

Tip: Mount your Minecraft world data to an EBS volume and use a startup script to reattach it if the instance changes. This ensures no world progress is lost!

Let me know if you'd like help setting up the launch template or ASG in the AWS Console or via Terraform.