MaxCompute:Spot Edition

Scenarios

The Spot Edition is suitable for latency-insensitive jobs that are expected to run at extremely low costs. For example, if you want to use MaxCompute to analyze large amounts of low-value data, such as user behavior logs and system logs, a large number of computing resources are consumed but the jobs in this scenario are insensitive to the output time. If you use subscription resources in this scenario, a large number of exclusive resources remain idle. If you use pay-as-you-go resources in this scenario, the cost is excessively high. In such a scenario, you can use the Spot Edition to reduce your computing costs. The Spot Edition is not suitable for jobs that are used for production and require long-term stability and sufficient resources. If you run important jobs in the Spot Edition, your business may be affected because the jobs may wait or run for a long period of time or even be forcefully terminated due to insufficient resources caused by resource competition.

Resource description

After you activate the Spot Edition of MaxCompute, you can use the computing resources of the os_SpotQuota quota. The os_SpotQuota quota provides shared pay-as-you-go computing resources. Jobs that use the os_SpotQuota quota are called spot jobs. Spot jobs have a lower unit price than jobs that use pay-as-you-go resources. This reduces the costs of using MaxCompute in latency-insensitive scenarios such as development and testing.

Supported regions

The following regions support the Spot Edition:

China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), China (Shenzhen), China (Hong Kong), Singapore, UK (London), Japan (Tokyo), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Germany (Frankfurt), Indonesia (Jakarta), US (Virginia), and US (Silicon Valley).

Billing description

• For more information about the billing and the billing rules of the pay-as-you-go service, see Computing pricing.

• For more information about how to switch between the Spot Edition and another billing method, see Switch between billing methods.

Precautions

• You can activate the Spot Edition of MaxCompute only after you activate MaxCompute that uses the pay-as-you-go billing method. For more information about the pay-as-you-go billing method, see Pay-as-you-go.

• The Spot Edition involves only computing resources. Storage and download fees are billed based on the pay-as-you-go billing method.

Use the Spot Edition

1. Activate MaxCompute that uses the pay-as-you-go billing method.

   For more information about how to activate MaxCompute that uses the pay-as-you-go billing method, see Activate MaxCompute and DataWorks.

2. Activate the Spot Edition of MaxCompute.

   Go to the page for activating the Spot Edition. Select Spot Edition for Product Type, specify Region as prompted, read and select Terms of Service, and then click Activate Now.

   Important

   After you activate the Spot Edition, you cannot unsubscribe from it. If you do not use the computing resources of os_SpotQuota to run jobs, you are not charged for the Spot Edition.

3. View the computing resources of the Spot Edition.

   1. Log on to the MaxCompute console. In the upper-left corner of the page, select the region in which the Spot Edition is activated.

   2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Workspace > Quotas.

   3. On the Quotas page, view the quotas of the Spot Edition. The level-1 quota os_SpotQuota_p and level-2 quota os_SpotQuota are displayed, which indicates that you can use the computing resources of the Spot Edition.

4. Associate the computing resources of the Spot Edition with a project.

   • For a new project, you can select os_SpotQuota from the drop-down list of Default Quota when you create the project.

   • For an existing project, you can click Manage in the Actions column of the project on the Projects page. On the Parameter Configuration tab of the Project Settings page, click Edit in the Basic Information section and change the value of Default Quota to os_SpotQuota.

5. Run a spot job.

   By default, a job that is initiated in a project that is associated with the os_SpotQuota quota is run as a spot job. However, if you specify another quota such as Default Pay-as-you-go Quota before the SQL statement of the job, the job is recognized as a standard job.

   Similarly, for a job in a project that is not associated with os_SpotQuota, if you add the following command before the SQL statement of the job to specify os_SpotQuota for the job, the job is recognized as a spot job.

   set odps.task.wlm.quota=os_SpotQuota;

   For more information about how to specify a quota at the job level, see Specify a quota group at the job level.

   Important

   You cannot use the preceding command to specify a quota for an MCQA job that is successfully run. The job consumption is still included in the default quota that is associated with the project in which the job runs. The jobs include but are not limited to the MCQA jobs that are initiated when you create an ad hoc query in the DataWorks console.

6. View the job status and resource consumption.

   You can view historical jobs and jobs that are running on the Jobs page of the MaxCompute console. For more information, see Manage jobs in the new MaxCompute console. You can view the consumption of computing resources of the Spot Edition on the Quotas page of the MaxCompute console. For more information, see View quota consumption.

   Note

   You cannot view the resource consumption of MCQA jobs.

7. View the billing details of the Spot Edition.

   For more information about how to view the billing details and usage records of the Spot Edition of MaxCompute, see View billing details.

References

For more information about the pay-as-you-go billing method, see Pay-as-you-go. For more information about billing rules, see Computing pricing.