[stephenr]

The only way AWS is cheaper than other providers is if you take advantage of the ability to spin up an EC2 instance from an image for just the time you need it, and spin it down when you don't.

If you're not using AWS, check to see how up/down affects your costs. Some will still charge you for VM's that are "down", meaning there is limited benefit (to you directly) to spinning them down.

[talltofu]

Thanks Stephen. Are there any large scale AWS implementations that you know of that spin VMs up and down? Also, besides cost, are there benefits to doing so?