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Stopping and Restarting EC2 Instances

For many AWS customers, Skeddly has become a cornerstone tool in reducing AWS costs. One key method they’re using to reduce their AWS costs is by stopping their EC2 instances at times when the EC2 instances are not needed. Using Skeddly’s reliable scheduling system, they can start the instances in the morning, and stop them in the evening.

Skeddly includes many actions that can be used to stop and restart your EC2 instances:

  • Start EC2 Instance - Starts, and optionally stops, an EC2 instance.
  • Start Multiple EC2 Instances - Starts, and optionally stops, zero or more EC2 instances.
  • Stop EC2 Instance - Stops an EC2 instance
  • Stop Multiple EC2 Instances - Stops zero or more EC2 instances.

Any of these actions can be used to reduce your AWS costs. The actions you choose to use depend on your desired workflow.

Until now, if you wanted to both start and stop your EC2 instances with a single action, you would use one of the “Start” actions. However, what if your desired workflow were to stop the instance at key times. Using the “Start” actions may work, but they may not be the exact fit for your workflow.

We have enhanced our “Stop EC2 Instance” and “Stop Multiple EC2 Instances” actions to better fit some workflows.

Optionally Restart the EC2 Instances

Now, using either the “Stop EC2 Instance” or “Stop Multiple EC2 Instances” actions, you can optionally restart the instances after a pre-determined time. Since EC2 instances take some time to stop, the delay can be based on:

  • The start time of the action, or
  • When the EC2 instances stops

So, you could stop your instance at 9pm and restart it 11 hours later. Or you can stop your instance at 1am, and restart it 1 hour after it’s been stopped.

Stop Your Instances On Weekends

Do you want to start your EC2 instances Monday morning and stop them Friday evening, or do you want to stop your EC2 instances Friday evening and restart them Monday morning?

They result in the same thing: massive cost savings. The difference is simply how you think about it.

Now, using a single “Stop Multiple EC2 Instances” action, you can stop your development EC2 instances on Friday evening, and restart them on Monday morning.

Schedule Your Retiring EC2 Instances to Stop and Restart At a Convenient Time

We’ve all received those emails from AWS regarding EC2 instances that are scheduled for retirement. The instances need to be stopped and restarted before a deadline so that they can move hardware.

Now you can schedule that stop and restart to happen at a convenient time.

Suspend Auto Scaling Processes

If your EC2 instances are controlled by Auto Scaling Groups, then stopping those instances causes Auto Scaling to terminate and recreate them.

You could use our “Update Auto Scaling Groups” action to adjust the desired number of instances. However, that will cause the EC2 instances to terminate instead of stop.

Now, both “Stop” actions can optionally suspend an Auto Scaling group’s processes so that the stopped EC2 instances are not terminated and replaced. So even Auto Scaled EC2 instances can be stopped and restarted.

We hope that these new enhancements allow you to better control your AWS costs.

Try It Today

Reduce your own AWS costs by stopping your EC2 instances when they’re not in use. Sign-up for our 30 day free trial or sign-in to your Skeddly account to get started.

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