AWS Parries Google With More Flexible Reserved Instances

After Google revealed its pricing model for reserved compute capacity, Amazon Web Services provided a new flexibility benefit in the competing Reserved Instances model.
AWS announced Monday that it will make it easier for customers to increase the value of their Reserved instances. Customers can reserve a certain amount and type of Elastic Compute Cloud instances (EC2) from AWS for a specified time, either in one- or three year terms, and at a lower price than the list price.
AWS customers will be able to jump from one instance size into another starting this month at a discounted rate, provided they stay within the same instance family and do not exceed their initial RI. Customers who have purchased a large instance (c4.8xlarge) now have the option of running 16 c4.large instances as well as four c4.2xlarge or two c4.4xlarge instances.
Customers who exceed their instance capacity occasionally will be charged a discount, but not the full price.
According to Jeff Barr, AWS evangelist, the new policy will be effective immediately and will automatically apply users’ accounts. One caveat: The flexibility benefits are currently only available to Linux/UNIX and not Windows.
“All Regional Linux/UNIX RIs that have shared tenancy are now applicable to all instances within an instance family or AWS region, regardless of whether you use them across multiple accounts through Consolidated Billing. Barr stated that this will reduce the time you spend managing your instances and allow you to be more creative and innovative when using compute resources.
AWS announced the new flexibility benefits days after Google released a preview of its Committed Use Discounts program for reserved virtual machines.