Introducing EC2 instance selector

When provisioning a spot fleet, getting the correct instance type can be a little bit overwhelming, log in to the console, look for instance capacity, etc

That's why AWS provides us a really useful tool from the CLI, EC2-instance-selector. This makes our lives much easier. You just need to run the command passing resource criteria like vcpus, network performance, ram, etc.

Be sure to have your AWS credentials loaded when you run it.

➜ ec2-instance-selector --vcpus=2 --memory=4 --cpu-architecture=x86_64 --gpus=0 
c5.large
c5a.large
c5ad.large
c5d.large
t2.medium
t3.medium
t3a.medium

There are lots of filters to use, check it out with --help:

➜ ec2-instance-selector --help                                                                                                           (...)                                                                                                                                                                Usage:                                                                                                                                                          ec2-instance-selector [flags] 

Examples:                                                                                                                                                                 ec2-instance-selector --vcpus 4 --region us-east-2 --availability-zones us-east-2b                                             ec2-instance-selector --memory-min 4 --memory-max 8 --vcpus-min 4 --vcpus-max 8 --region us-east-2 

Filter Flags:                                                                                                                                                                  

--allow-list string                 List of allowed instance types to select from w/ regex syntax (Example: m[3-5]\.*)    
  -z, --availability-zones strings        Availability zones or zone ids to check EC2 capacity offered in specific AZs         
      --baremetal                         Bare Metal instance types (.metal instances)                                                                         
  -b, --burst-support                     Burstable instance types                                                                                                       
  -a, --cpu-architecture string           CPU architecture [x86_64/amd64, i386, or arm64]                                                    
      --current-generation                Current generation instance types (explicitly set this to false to not return current generation instance types)                
      --deny-list string                  List of instance types which should be excluded w/ regex syntax (Example: m[1-2]\.*)                     
  -e, --ena-support                       Instance types where ENA is supported or required                                                                               
  -f, --fpga-support                      FPGA instance types                 

(...)

So stop wasting time looking for instance types and give this powerful tool a shot. EC2 Instance Selector helps you choose the right instance efficiently—now let’s also explore optimized EC2 selections in new AWS regions like Mexico Central.

Leandro Mansilla

DevOps Engineer