EC2 instance scheduler

Question

I would like to ask, what automatic tools are there to start Amazon EC2 instance at 08:00AM and stop it on 16:00 (And where to run it from?)

You may find more info about how to use the Amazon EC2 Command Line Tools for scheduling instances in [this thread](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2413029/auto-shutdown-and-start-amazon-ec2-instance). — danoo, Aug 05 '11 at 15:26
FYI, for anyone looking for answers here... a lot of the services mentioned below are now dead links. We're currently using https://awssomesauce.com with much success. — jdmcnair, Jun 24 '15 at 20:07
For a lightweight solution, I'd suggest to [Schedule EC2 Start / Stop using AWS Lambda](http://stackoverflow.com/a/38371889/4058484), it costs less than $0.0004 USD/month. — eQ19, Jul 16 '16 at 04:49
However, it seems more expensive if you consider developer labor costs. I use [Cloud Scheduler](https://scheduler.gncloud.io/) service, and it costs about $ 10 a month. — Sang Song, Nov 11 '17 at 03:07

AntonyM · Answer 1 · 2012-03-23T10:03:59.380

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The company I work for had customers regularly asking about this so we've written a freeware EC2 scheduling app available here:

http://blog.simple-help.com/2012/03/free-ec2-scheduler/

It works on Windows and Mac, lets you create multiple daily/weekly/monthly schedules and lets you use matching filters to include large numbers of instances easily or includes ones that you add in the future.

edited Mar 23 '12 at 10:03

answered Mar 23 '12 at 09:47

AntonyM

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 21 '10 at 15:04

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I run my instances through a service called Scalarium - it has this time-based autoscaling. :)

answered Oct 21 '10 at 15:04

Till

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@brainray It's now available as OpsWorks. :) – Till Apr 15 '13 at 09:36

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered May 17 '11 at 04:48

Well to shut the servers down, you could just schedule a task on the server(s) itself to tell it to shutdown at 16:00.

However if you use the Amazon EC2 Command Line Tools you can run commands from your workstation to start and stop instances:

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSEC2/latest/CommandLineReference/index.html?ApiReference-cmd-RunInstances.html

In order to set up the Command Line Tools on your workstation for Mac/Linux the following guides may be useful:

You could even configure these commands to run when you boot your workstation, or schedule them on your workstation.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 13 '10 at 16:24

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Amazon doesn't offer any functionality to support this.

The preferred solution (at present) is to run a cron task from an existing server.

answered Jul 13 '10 at 16:24

Zachary Ozer

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 26 '13 at 20:42

You can do this by running a job on another instance that is running 24/7 or you can use a 3rd party service such as Ylastic or Rocket Peak.

If you want to set it up yourself, for example, in C# the code to stop a server is quite straightforward:

public void stopInstance(string instance_id, string AWSRegion) { RegionEndpoint myAWSRegion = RegionEndpoint.GetBySystemName(AWSRegion); AmazonEC2 ec2 = AWSClientFactory.CreateAmazonEC2Client(AWSAccessKey, AWSSecretKey, myAWSRegion); ec2.StopInstances(new StopInstancesRequest().WithInstanceId(instance_id)); }

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Sep 13 '10 at 02:40

I'm not sure that there is, but I believe that a lot of people have interest in such a product. I've actually got a product that does the opposite of what you need -- it stops a machine after a predetermined amount of time ;-). My guess is that you're looking to save EC2 $$$ by running your instances only during daytime hours. If that's the case then I believe my existing product could easily be twisted to meet your needs.

EC2 instance scheduler

6 Answers6