[jsmith45]

That actually depends.

Reserved instances have one form with zero operation benefits: Regional Reserved Instances. These are 100% purely billing constructs.

They have zonal Reserved Instances which do reserve capacity.

Finally they have pure capacity reservations. These cost full price. Esentially you are paying for an instance even if it is not running, but it does guarentee it will be there if you need it. but it also has no comittments.

However combining the capacity reservation with a savings plan allows you to basically recreate the net effect of a zonal Reserved Instance but with additional flexibility.

Regional Reserved Instance's discount will also apply to reserved capacity if there were not enough actual instances to cover the Reserved Instances.

[rescbr]

> However combining the capacity reservation with a savings plan allows you to basically recreate the net effect of a zonal Reserved Instance but with additional flexibility.

This is something that has never crossed my mind. TIL.