Capacity Reservations in cluster placement groups - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
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Capacity Reservations in cluster placement groups

You can create Capacity Reservations in a cluster placement group to reserve Amazon EC2 compute capacity for your workloads. Cluster placement groups offer the benefit of low network latency and high network throughput.

Creating a Capacity Reservation in a cluster placement group ensures that you have access to compute capacity in your cluster placement groups when you need it, for as long as you need it. This is ideal for reserving capacity for high-performance (HPC) workloads that require compute scaling. It allows you to scale your cluster down while ensuring that the capacity remains available for your use so that you can scale back up when needed.

Limitations

Keep the following in mind when creating Capacity Reservations in cluster placement groups:

  • If an existing Capacity Reservation is not in a placement group, you can't modify the Capacity Reservation to reserve capacity in a placement group. To reserve capacity in a placement group, you must create the Capacity Reservation in the placement group.

  • After you create a Capacity Reservation in a placement group, you can't modify it to reserve capacity outside of the placement group.

  • You can increase your reserved capacity in a placement group by modifying an existing Capacity Reservation in the placement group, or by creating additional Capacity Reservations in the placement group. However, you increase your chances of getting an insufficient capacity error.

  • You can't share Capacity Reservations that have been created in a cluster placement group.

  • You can't delete a cluster placement group that has active Capacity Reservations. You must cancel all Capacity Reservations in the cluster placement group before you can delete it.

Work with Capacity Reservations in cluster placement groups

To start using Capacity Reservations with cluster placement groups, perform the following steps.

Note

If you want to create a Capacity Reservation in an existing cluster placement group, skip Step 1. Then for Steps 2 and 3, specify the ARN of the existing cluster placement group. For information about how to find the ARN of your existing cluster placement group, see View placement group information.

Step 1: (Conditional) Create a cluster placement group for use with a Capacity Reservation

Perform this step only if you need to create a new cluster placement group. To use an existing cluster placement group, skip this step and then for Steps 2 and 3, use the ARN of that cluster placement group. For information about how to find the ARN of your existing cluster placement group, see View placement group information.

You can create the cluster placement group using one of the following methods.

Console
To create a cluster placement group using the console
  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Placement Groups, and then choose Create placement group.

  3. For Name, specify a descriptive name for the placement group.

  4. For Placement strategy, choose Cluster.

  5. Choose Create group.

  6. In the Placement groups table, in the Group ARN column, make a note of the ARN of the cluster placement group that you created. You'll need it for the next step.

Amazon CLI
To create a cluster placement group using the Amazon CLI

Use the create-placement-group command. For --group-name, specify a descriptive name for the placement group, and for --strategy, specify cluster.

The following example creates a placement group named MyPG that uses the cluster placement strategy.

C:\> aws ec2 create-placement-group \ --group-name MyPG \ --strategy cluster

Make a note of the placement group ARN returned in the command output, because you'll need it for the next step.

Step 2: Create a Capacity Reservation in a cluster placement group

You create a Capacity Reservation in a cluster placement group in the same way that you create any Capacity Reservation. However, you must also specify the ARN of the cluster placement group in which to create the Capacity Reservation. For more information, see Create a Capacity Reservation.

Considerations
  • The specified cluster placement group must be in the available state. If the cluster placement group is in the pending, deleting, or deleted state, the request fails.

  • The Capacity Reservation and the cluster placement group must be in the same Availability Zone. If the request to create the Capacity Reservation specifies an Availability Zone that is different from that of the cluster placement group, the request fails.

  • You can create Capacity Reservations only for instance types that are supported by cluster placement groups. If you specify an unsupported instance type, the request fails. For more information, see Cluster placement group rules and limitations.

  • If you create an open Capacity Reservation in a cluster placement group and there are existing running instances that have matching attributes (placement group ARN, instance type, Availability Zone, platform, and tenancy), those instances automatically run in the Capacity Reservation.

  • Your request to create a Capacity Reservation could fail if one of the following is true:

    • Amazon EC2 does not have sufficient capacity to fulfill the request. Either try again at a later time, try a different Availability Zone, or try a smaller capacity. If your workload is flexible across instance types and sizes, try different instance attributes.

    • The requested quantity exceeds your On-Demand Instance limit for the selected instance family. Increase your On-Demand Instance limit for the instance family and try again. For more information, see On-Demand Instance quotas.

You can create the Capacity Reservation in the cluster placement group using one of the following methods.

Console
To create a Capacity Reservation using the console
  1. Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/ec2/.

  2. Choose Capacity Reservations, and then choose Create Capacity Reservation.

  3. On the Create a Capacity Reservation page, specify the instance type, platform, Availability Zone, Tenancy, quantity, and end date as needed.

  4. For Placement group, select the ARN of the cluster placement group in which to create the Capacity Reservation.

  5. Choose Create.

For more information, see Create a Capacity Reservation.

Amazon CLI
To create a Capacity Reservation using the Amazon CLI

Use the create-capacity-reservation command. For --placement-group-arn, specify the ARN of the cluster placement group in which to create the Capacity Reservation.

$ aws ec2 create-capacity-reservation \ --instance-type instance_type \ --instance-platform platform \ --availability-zone az \ --instance-count quantity \ --placement-group-arn placement_group_ARN

For more information, see Create a Capacity Reservation.

Step 3: Launch instances into the cluster placement group

You launch an instance into a Capacity Reservation in a cluster placement group in the same way that you launch an instance into any Capacity Reservation. However, you must also specify the ARN of the cluster placement group in which to launch the instance. For more information, see Create a Capacity Reservation.

Considerations
  • If the Capacity Reservation is open, you do not need to specify the Capacity Reservation in the instance launch request. If the instance has attributes (placement group ARN, instance type, Availability Zone, platform, and tenancy) that match a Capacity Reservation in the specified placement group, the instance automatically runs in the Capacity Reservation.

  • If the Capacity Reservation accepts only targeted instance launches, you must specify the target Capacity Reservation in addition to the cluster placement group in the request.

  • If the Capacity Reservation is in a Capacity Reservation group, you must specify the target Capacity Reservation group in addition to the cluster placement group in the request. For more information, see Work with Capacity Reservation groups.

You can launch an instance into a Capacity Reservation in a cluster placement group using one of the following methods.

Console
To launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation using the console
  1. Follow the procedure to launch an instance, but don't launch the instance until you've completed the following steps to specify the settings for the placement group and Capacity Reservation.

  2. Expand Advanced details and do the following:

    1. For Placement group, select the cluster placement group in which to launch the instance.

    2. For Capacity Reservation, choose one of the following options depending on the configuration of the Capacity Reservation:

      • Open – To launch the instances into any open Capacity Reservation in the cluster placement group that has matching attributes and sufficient capacity.

      • Target by ID – To launch the instances into a Capacity Reservation that accepts only targeted instance launches.

      • Target by group – To launch the instances into any Capacity Reservation with matching attributes and available capacity in the selected Capacity Reservation group.

  3. In the Summary panel, review your instance configuration, and then choose Launch instance. For more information, see Launch an instance using the new launch instance wizard.

For more information, see Launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation.

Amazon CLI
To launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation using the Amazon CLI

Use the run-instances command. If you need to target a specific Capacity Reservation or a Capacity Reservation group, specify the --capacity-reservation-specification parameter. For --placement, specify the GroupName parameter and then specify the name of the placement group that you created in the previous steps.

The following command launches an instance into a targeted Capacity Reservation in a cluster placement group.

$ aws ec2 run-instances \ --image-id ami_id \ --count quantity \ --instance-type instance_type \ --key-name key_pair_name \ --subnet-id subnetid \ --capacity-reservation-specification CapacityReservationTarget={CapacityReservationId=capacity_reservation_id} \ --placement "GroupName=cluster_placement_group_name"

For more information, see Launch instances into an existing Capacity Reservation.