Re: AWS Sales and Support... Hello, anybody there?
I must admit it can be confusing. Along with they keep dropping the prices about every 3 months it seems. Believe me it was a LOT worse in years past. Now if you want to really blow your mind throw in the reserved instance pricing which is based on the type and size of machine you run. My advice - start out small at first (IMHO small or medium is minimum needed) with On-Demand, do some benchmarking (like Steven showed at DISD), try different sizes and types (m1 and m3). And then maybe even run for 2-3 months and see if you need to get bigger. Once you have a machine that you know will do the job then get a Reserved Instance to save money. IMPORTANT - make sure if you buy a RI that you get it in the same zone and size of your machine. This might seem obvious, but I had a case when RI had just come out that I bought a RI and Amazon put it in the wrong zone and I didn't find out for a couple of months that I wasn't getting the reduced price. Eventually they made good on it. That was before they allow selling your RI in the marketplace. ROI on a Reserved instance is about 5 months.
Chuck Atkinson
"No matter how confounding the case, Bob Worsley always finds the quaesitum."