AWS Spot Instance Limit

Question

I used spot instances for the past month, launching and terminating instances. Currently, I've no instances running on AWS (all spot instance terminated). But when I try to launch a new spot instance, it tells me that "Max spot instance count exceeded".

I've read the documentation on spot instance limits. However, I'm confused to how this limit works. Is it limiting the number of concurrent instances you can run, or the total instances you ever launched?

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-spot-limits.html#spot-limits-general

Answer 1

Is it limiting the number of concurrent instances you can run, or the total instances you ever launched?

EC2 Limits are per number of concurrent instances you can launch.

I'd suggest to check your current EC2 limits using the AWS Management Console.

• Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
• From the navigation bar, select a region (e.g. US East (Ohio).
• From the navigation pane, choose Limits.

Check your current limits for the instance type(s) you want to use and the limits related to the spot instances.

Answer 2

You may want to check "Spot requests" under EC2 panel. According to the docs:

If you terminate your Spot Instance but do not cancel the request, the request counts against this limit until Amazon EC2 detects the termination and closes the request.

I've found closed requests that didn't cancel automatically, you can cancel them manually to free new requests.