Hey everyone! I'm working with some disaster recovery (DR) instances that we usually keep off when not in use. We previously did similar work in Azure, and I've learned that it matters whether we shut down instances from within the OS or through the Azure Portal—this can affect what billable state those VMs are in behind the scenes. Now that we're migrating to AWS, I'm curious if the same principle applies. We have a scheduled task that runs a shutdown command every morning at 3AM, and if any machine powers on during the day, that task turns it off at night. Is it a big deal whether I use a Windows scheduled task or the AWS Event Bridge for this? Any advice on the best approach? Thanks!
4 Answers
Ultimately, the key thing is that as long as the instance is in the stopped state, you won’t incur EC2 costs. The way you get it there—through the AWS console or from the OS—is almost irrelevant. Just keep in mind that with reserved instances, you’re paying for them whether they're running or not, which is a separate consideration.
Using AWS's Instance Scheduler is a great way to automate your start and stop times efficiently. We do the same for customer environments, and it's definitely part of our cost-saving measures. Honestly, using AWS’s scheduling tools makes it easier than managing a manual task. Plus, it won’t cost you extra!
In AWS, it really doesn’t matter if you shut down your EC2 instance through the OS or from the AWS Management Console—the instance ends up in a "Stopped" state either way, meaning no EC2 billing. However, you still get charged for any associated resources like EBS volumes or Elastic IPs. Just keep in mind that while the OS is shutting down, there might be a brief moment where you're still billed if you choose the OS shutdown method, but it won’t amount to much.
When it comes to AWS versus Azure, AWS doesn’t have the same concept of different shutdown states like Azure does, such as 'stopped' and 'stopped (deallocated)'. Whether you shut it down through the console or the OS, if it’s stopped, you’re only paying for the storage like EBS. Just don’t forget about those extra charges for any Elastic IPs that may be attached!
That makes sense! Just to add, you can actually change the behavior when shutting down from the OS—by default, it just shuts down, but you can set it to terminate the instance instead if that’s what you want.