Programmatically create EC2 instance, run command, and terminate

Question

I seek a method to implement a cron-like system on AWS EC2 instance : every morning, I have some tasks to run, and they are using a lot of RAM (about 8 Go for each script). I don't want to pay a full-time c4.2xlarge instance, that's the point.

What I think about :

1. At 00h, each day, create a c4.2xlarge instance
2. When the system is running, run a PHP script
3. When the PHP script ends, terminate the instance

How to automate these actions ?

Answer 1

If you created an instance with --instance-initiated-shutdown-behavior terminate then it will terminate itself when stopped. All you need to do is run shutdown -h now at the end of your script when it's done.

So how do you start an instance at a specific time?

1. There are third party services that do exactly that. Like GorillaStack.

OR

2. Create a CloudWatch scheduled event. It's basically a cron in the cloud that can run a Lambda function, which in turn may start you instance.