Amazon Web Services Launches Reserved Instance Marketplace

Amazon Web Services LLC (AWS) launched on Wednesday the Reserved Instance Marketplace, an online marketplace that provides AWS customers a place to sell their Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Reserved Instances to other businesses and organizations.

It also allows AWS customers to browse for an even wider selection of Reserved Instance term lengths and pricing options sold by other AWS customers.

Reserved Instances for Amazon EC2 allow customers to lower costs by making a low, one-time payment to reserve compute capacity for a specified term. In turn, customers receive a significant discount on the hourly charge for that instance.

"The Reserved Instance Marketplace gives customers the flexibility to sell the remainder of their Reserved Instances as their needs change, such as wanting to move instances to a new AWS Region, changing to a new instance type, or selling capacity for projects that end before the term expires," Amazon explained.

Amazon EC2 Instances purchased on the Reserved Instance Marketplace offer the same capacity reservations as Reserved Instances purchased directly from AWS, the company said. Businesses can even shop the Reserved Instance Marketplace to purchase Reserved Instances outside the standard one-year and three-year term lengths.

"For example, a business that anticipates increased website traffic for a short period of time, or an organization wishing to spend its remaining end-of-year budget, will be able to search for Reserved Instances with shorter duration times," Amazon said.

1. To get started with the Reserved Instance Marketplace, AWS customers can follow these simple steps:.
2. Log into the AWS Management Console (http://console.aws.amazon.com) through a web browser.
3. Click on the Amazon EC2 tab and select the Reserved Instance option.
4. Select the Reserved Instances you’d like to sell and click "Sell my Reserved Instance" to enter the Sell my Reserved Instance Wizard.

After a brief registration process to configure your bank account, set the upfront price and the number of Reserved Instances to sell.

"Once listed, other AWS customers can view the available Reserved Instances from the AWS Management Console, and choose the instance that best matches their criteria. AWS will complete the transaction and transfer ownership of the Reserved Instance to the buyer," Amazon said. "Sellers will receive a cash disbursement for their Reserved Instance directly into their bank account via wire transfer."

For more information about the Reserved Instance Marketplace, visit http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/reserved-instance-marketplace.

Kevin Parrish is a contributing editor and writer for Tom's Hardware,Tom's Games and Tom's Guide. He's also a graphic artist, CAD operator and network administrator.

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