EC2 micro instances

Few days ago Amazon announced a new type of EC2 machine - micro instance. It has 613 MB of RAM, supports 64-bit systems and costs only 2 cents per hour (3 cents for Windows version). It also has less CPU power and I/O capabilities, but it's well suited for many applications that don't require much resources. I can thing of many possible uses: monitoring tools, revision control systems, low-traffic web servers, training, testing. Micro instances come without ephemeral storage. You boot them right from EBS and keep your data there, which is fine unless you create GBs of temporary files.


If you're not sure if it has enough power, consider two things:
- The sustained CPU power is low, but if you need a short burst, you might get it if the cycles are available. In fact, you can get twice as much as a small instance! No guarantee though, still useful if your app generates variable load.
- As with all EC2 instances, you can convert it to a bigger type.


See also this post on running Ubuntu on EC2 micro.