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by nodesocket 3203 days ago
Per second billing is somewhat of a gimmick just so Amazon can say they are more granular than Google Compute. The difference between seconds and a minute of billing is fractions of a cent. Rounding errors.

The exception is Google Compute has a 10 minute minimum, so if you are creating machines and destroying them quickly, per second billing will be noticeable.
1 comments
grzm 3203 days ago
I think the useful comparison people are making is the difference between the previous per-hour billing and new per-second billing. Sure, if they can get some mileage comparing per-second to per-minute, great. At the end of the day isn't the increased granularity better?
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mfringel 3203 days ago
I think "second vs. minute" might be into "distinction without a difference" territory. Sure, per-second will definitionally help at the margins, but I'm dubious about the amount of money it will actually save.

That all being said, it can enable a bunch of interesting things (e.g. more interesting stuff with AWS Lambda), and I look forward to see what per-second billing becomes an enabling technology for.

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grzm 3203 days ago
Sure. I read 'nodesocket as arguing that AWS is promoting per-second as a distinction between AWS and GCP ("somewhat as a gimmick" in their words). That's not mentioned in the submission, nor the AWS blog post announcement.

The important and very real distinction is the change from per-hour to per-second. If you're going to make it more granular (which from per-hour is a good thing), why would AWS stop at per-minute if it's the same or only marginally more difficult to make it per-second, particularly when they have the added benefit of being more granular that GCP? In other words, I don't see the reduction as primarily a marketing move on AWS's part. I'm sure they felt pressure to make it more granular. Stopping at parity doesn't necessarily make sense, nor should they be called out for doing more purely for marketing reasons.

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yeukhon 3203 days ago
Do you have anything in mind for "interesting stuff with AWS Lambda"? Like more granular chargeback for a customer, even though Lambda is already billed per ms for most the part.
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