EC2 instance scheduler [closed] - amazon-ec2

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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?)

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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:
http://www.robertsosinski.com/2008/01/26/starting-amazon-ec2-with-mac-os-x/
http://cloud-computing.learningtree.com/2010/09/28/using-the-amazon-ec2-command-line-tools-and-api/
You could even configure these commands to run when you boot your workstation, or schedule them on your workstation.

Answer 4

Amazon doesn't offer any functionality to support this.
The preferred solution (at present) is to run a cron task from an existing server.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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));
}