One of the most popular features of Cloud8 is the scheduler. It allows you to schedule tasks once or on a recurring basis. Let’s share best practices for saving.
Create a schedule
Creating a schedule is very simple. Just drag the mouse in the date area to the server you want to create the schedule. A configuration window will open and you can adjust your settings.
You can, for example, schedule the following tasks for 5:00 am every weekend until July 31st:
- shut down the server;
- downgrade to ‘m1.small’;
- backup;
- turn it back on
- If the server has an Elastic IP or is in a VPC, the bind action will correctly associate the IP.
Economy
To save money, customers use the scheduler in basically two ways:
- shut down servers : ideal for testing environments that can be shut down in the early hours of the morning and/or on the weekend. See a table with the savings:
- upgrade/downgrade : downgrade the profile when you have less traffic. The table takes into account that the downgrade is made with the immediately lower profile. Depending on your traffic, you can reduce it and save even more!
Tips
- Shut down the server 10-15 minutes before full time. This ensures that the server will not come online in the next hour and therefore be charged by Amazon. Example: instead of stopping at 9:00 pm, stop at 8:50 pm.
- Turn on the server a few minutes after the full hour. There is no way to know whether the clock on Cloud8’s servers is perfectly synchronized with Amazon’s clocks. Ex: instead of calling at 7:00, call at 7:02
- the same goes for upgrade / downgrade;
Taking into account that the cost of hiring Cloud8 is much lower than the benefit, you will certainly make a profit!
