Analyzing AWS Spot Instance Pricing

Many cloud computing vendors offer a preemptible class of service for rented virtual machines.  In November of 2017, Amazon.com announced a change to the mechanism it was using to price its preemptible ``spot instances'' so that prices would change more ``smoothly.''  This paper analyzes the effect of the change in pricing mechanism on spot instance prices.  It examines the prices immediately before and after the mechanism change to determine the extent to which prices themselves changed.  It also compares the period immediately after the change in mechanism to the most recent period.  Our results indicate that in addition to smoothing prices, the mechanism change introduced generally higher prices which is a trend that continues.