Reserved Instances
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Reserved Instances are like buying a gym membership instead of paying per visit. You commit to using a specific instance type for 1-3 years, and AWS gives you up to 72% off. The catch? You're paying whether you use it or not. Great for predictable workloads, terrible for that side project you'll abandon in a month.
Real Talk
Reserved Instances (RIs) are a billing model where you commit to a specific instance type, region, and term (1 or 3 years) in exchange for significant discounts over on-demand pricing. AWS offers Standard RIs (up to 72% off), Convertible RIs (up to 66% off, flexible), and Savings Plans as a more flexible alternative.
When You'll Hear This
"We reserved our production database instances and saved 60% annually." / "Don't reserve instances for dev environments — use spot or on-demand."
Related Terms
FinOps
FinOps is the practice of bringing financial accountability to cloud spending.
Right-Sizing
Right-sizing means matching your cloud resources to what you actually need. Running a t2.xlarge for a blog that gets 10 visitors a day?
Spot Instances
Spot Instances are like standby flights for cloud computing. AWS has spare capacity? You get it for up to 90% off.