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The error message you're encountering, which translates to "Failed to start instance (instance ID)" with the reason "Insufficient capacity," is a common issue when trying to launch specific instance types, including GPU instances like your g5.2xlarge in the ap-northeast-1 region.
This error occurs when AWS does not currently have enough available on-demand capacity to fulfill your request for that particular instance type in the specified region and Availability Zone. It's important to note that this is not a problem with your account or permissions, but rather a temporary lack of available hardware resources on AWS's end.
To explain this situation to your boss, you can use the following technical explanation:
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AWS maintains a pool of hardware resources for each instance type in every region and Availability Zone.
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When the demand for a specific instance type exceeds the available supply in a particular location, AWS cannot provision new instances of that type until capacity becomes available.
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This situation is more common with specialized instance types like GPU instances (g5.2xlarge in this case), as they have more limited availability compared to general-purpose instances.
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The issue is temporary and can change rapidly as capacity becomes available or as demand fluctuates.
To resolve this issue, you can try the following:
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Retry launching the instance after waiting a few minutes, as capacity can shift frequently.
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Try launching the instance in a different Availability Zone within the ap-northeast-1 region.
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Consider using an alternative GPU instance type that might have more available capacity, such as g4dn or g6g instances.
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If the workload allows, you could temporarily use a different region where capacity is available.
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For critical or time-sensitive workloads, you might want to explore using Capacity Reservations to ensure resource availability, although this would require additional planning and potentially increased costs.
By explaining these points, your boss should understand that this is a common occurrence in cloud computing environments and that there are several strategies to mitigate the issue.
Sources
Troubleshooting - Amazon SageMaker AI
EC2 instance launching error | AWS re:Post
