Share Capacity Blocks
Capacity Block sharing enables Capacity Block owners to share Amazon EC2 Capacity Blocks with other Amazon accounts within an Amazon Organization. This allows you to maximize utilization of reserved GPU capacity across different teams and projects to efficiently use the Capacity Blocks.
The Amazon account that owns the Capacity Block (owner) can share it with other Amazon accounts (consumers). An owner can share a Capacity Block with specific Amazon accounts inside their Amazon Organization, an organizational unit inside their Amazon Organization, or the entire Amazon Organization. Consumers can launch instances into Capacity Blocks that are shared with them in the same way that they launch instances into Capacity Blocks they own.
Prerequisites for sharing Capacity Blocks
Before you can share a Capacity Block, the following conditions must be met:
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You must own the Capacity Block - You cannot share a Capacity Block that has been shared with you.
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The Capacity Block state must be active or scheduled - Capacity Blocks that are in other states, such as
expiredorpayment-pendingcannot be shared. -
Sharing within your Amazon Organization only - An owner can share a Capacity Block with specific Amazon accounts inside their Amazon Organization, an organizational unit inside their Amazon Organization, or the entire Amazon Organization.
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UltraServer Capacity Blocks not supported - You cannot share Capacity Blocks for Amazon EC2 UltraServers.
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Account eligibility - Capacity Block sharing is not available to new Amazon accounts or Amazon accounts that have a limited billing history.
Related services
Capacity Block sharing integrates with Amazon Resource Access Manager (Amazon RAM). Amazon RAM is a service that enables you to share your Amazon resources with any Amazon account or through Amazon Organizations. With Amazon RAM, you share resources that you own by creating a resource share. A resource share specifies the resources to share, and the consumers with whom to share them. Consumers can be individual Amazon accounts, or organizational units or an entire organization from Amazon Organizations.
For more information about Amazon RAM, see the Amazon RAM User Guide.
Shared Capacity Block permissions
Permissions for owners
The Capacity Block owner remains responsible for managing the Capacity Block (e.g. extending, sharing), and the instances they launch into it. Owners cannot modify instances that consumers launch into Capacity Blocks they have shared.
Permissions for consumers
Consumers can launch instances into the shared capacity and are responsible for managing those instances. Consumers cannot view or modify instances owned by other consumers or by the Capacity Block owner. Consumers can also only view the total capacity and available capacity in the shared Capacity Block.
Share a Capacity Block
To share a Capacity Block, you must add it to a resource share. A resource share is an Amazon RAM resource that lets you share your resources across Amazon Web Services accounts.
If you added your Capacity Block to a resource share that is shared with the entire Amazon Organization, consumers in your organization are granted access to the shared Capacity Block.
Capacity Blocks operate on a first-come, first-served basis for all accounts, regardless of ownership status. When you share a Capacity Block, if a consumer launches instances before the owner, those instances occupy the capacity until the consumer terminates the instances or until 30 minutes before the Capacity Block expires.
Stop sharing a Capacity Block
You can stop sharing a Capacity Block at any time until 30 minutes before the block expiry date.
What happens when you stop sharing:
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Consumers can no longer launch new instances into the Capacity Block that was unshared.
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Any running instances continue running until 30 minutes before the Capacity Block expiry date, unless terminated by the consumer.
Monitor shared Capacity Block usage
Capacity Block owners can monitor which accounts are using their shared Capacity Blocks and track instance usage per account.
Instance termination notices
Owner and consumer accounts that have instances running in the Capacity Block will receive an EventBridge event 40 minutes before the Capacity Block reservation ends, indicating that any instances running in the reservation will begin to terminate in 10 minutes. For more information, see Monitor Capacity Blocks using EventBridge.
Capacity Block extensions
Capacity Blocks can be extended while they are shared. Only the owner account can extend a shared Capacity Block.
When a Capacity Block is extended, running instances launched by the owner or consumers automatically inherit the new expiry date, and consumers can continue using the shared capacity until the new expiry date without any instance interruption.
Pricing and billing
Owners are billed for the Capacity Blocks they share and pay upfront for the Capacity Block when they purchase it. Owners also pay for operating system charges for instances they run on the Capacity Block.
Consumers are billed only for the operating system charges for instances they run in the shared Capacity Block. Consumers are not charged for the Capacity Block reservation itself.