Google Cloud is cutting the price of some virtual machines
Discounts on Spot VMs are up for grabs
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GoogleCloud has slashed some of the prices of its Spot VMs in what could be welcome news for customers watching their budgets.
Google Cloud’s Spot VMs enable customers to purchase VMs from a pool of unused spare capacity at a reduced price compared to pay-as-you-go, at a discount of between 60% to 91% according to its ownestimates.
The cloud giant has now lowered prices on standard and custom Spot VMs and memory in 37 resource pools, with discounts of up to 11% available (on top of the existing discounts).
Why would anyone use Spot VMs?
Google recommends Spot VM for users withhostingworkloads “that are fault-tolerant and can withstand possible VM preemption”.
For example, batch processing jobs can run on Spot VMs, and if some of those VMs stop during processing, the job slows but does not completely stop.
Google says Spot VMs can complete your batch processing tasks without placing additional load on your existing VMs and without you paying full price for additional standard VMs.
However, Spot VMs also have a variety of drawbacks, Spot VMs are finite Compute Engine resources, so they might not always be available.
Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
In addition, Spot VMs can’t live to migrate to become standard VMs while they are running or be set to automatically restart when there is a hosted event.
What type of discounts are available?
If you’d like to keep up to date with the prices of Spot VMs, you can headherefor real-time updates.
Google says Intel-powered VMs are the way forward, despite cost
Dodgy Microsoft Azure update knocks Ubuntu VMs offline
Our guide to the best cloud management tools
Though Spot discounts apply to GPUs and local SSDs, Google is not currently updating those prices.
Will McCurdy has been writing about technology for over five years. He has a wide range of specialities including cybersecurity, fintech, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, cloud computing, payments, artificial intelligence, retail technology, and venture capital investment. He has previously written for AltFi, FStech, Retail Systems, and National Technology News and is an experienced podcast and webinar host, as well as an avid long-form feature writer.
Cisco issues patch to fix serious flaw allowing possible industrial systems takeover
7 myths about email security everyone should stop believing
I’ve used Genmoji and now I’m convinced Apple Intelligence will be a huge success
