[sdrothrock]

> How many EC2 instances can just be turned off and on?

I could actually imagine situations where you have loads that also follow a schedule -- for example, if you have a ton of data and customers can schedule summary generation/analyses, a lot of them will tend to schedule them on the first of the month (that is, after the last month has ended).

In a case like that with a predictable load, you could boot up a bunch of instances a bit before the end of the last day of a month, then turn them off (to go back to normal loads) a bit into the second day of the new month.

Machine learning could help you pick out other peaks, like say, every Monday or Sunday.

[alfanick]

> In a case like that with a predictable load, you could boot up a bunch of instances a bit before the end of the last day of a month, then turn them off (to go back to normal loads) a bit into the second day of the new month.

If it's predictable, no need for machine learning at all.

> "Machine learning could help you pick out other peaks, like say, every Monday or Sunday."

Or human can script around it, like you just did.