Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier
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So, like others here, I have an AWS account set up to run a t2.micro for a Sockbot. To make sure I don't exceed any limits, I have a billing alert setup to notify me if any charges appear on the account. This morning I got an email that the alert had been triggered. I looked through everything in AWS to try and track down the issue but couldn't find a thing, and this account is only 4 months old. No way the free tier has expired. So I go to submit a support ticket, only to find this:
Bravo, Amazon. Bravo.
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So a glitch exists, they found the problem, they're fixing it, and no one's getting billed who shouldn't be. What's the problem?
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Look if Redhat's openshift can solve your problem, it's free without a time-limit.
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TIL AWS has a free tier. I need to look into that.
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@error Just for one year, and it's very easy to exceed disk IO, bandwidth, etc, and get your credit card billed for it.
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My AWS trial ended like 6 months ago. I never clicked stuff to cancel it or anything, I just let it lapse, and it couldn't take money from me automatically, so I figured that's that, it will suspend it or whatever and that's it.
I keep getting emails like every two weeks that "my account is about to be suspended". Good! That was the plan! Give the hell up already!
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@fbmac said in Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier:
Look if Redhat's openshift can solve your problem, it's free without a time-limit.
Looks promising.
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@masonwheeler said in Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier:
So a glitch exists, they found the problem, they're fixing it, and no one's getting billed who shouldn't be. What's the problem?
That the glitch ever existed in the first place. They must have made some change recently that triggered the glitch. And now there are enough people that have contacted support that they have had to put up a notice.
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@abarker ...?
That sounds like a perfectly fine response to a minor billing glitch.
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Knowing how AWS's code is deployed, I think I know how this happened, and why it was reverted quickly. Someone probably screwed up a config file that got pushed and it accidentally started billing free tier customers. Also knowing how their ticketing and how their post-mortems go, someone's getting chewed out by the manager all the way up to the SVP for this.
(This is all based off of my knowledge as a former employee, I've experienced the accidental config deployment slip-up, but didn't do any massive impact like this, but have seen worse happen)
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@theBread said in Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier:
(This is all based off of my knowledge as a former employee, I've experienced the accidental config deployment slip-up, but didn't do any massive impact like this, but have seen worse happen)
And by "massive impact" you mean "nobody was actually affected," yes?
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@masonwheeler Pretty much, luckily.
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@error so does Azure and Google cloud.
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@anonymous234 any of them without a time limit?
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@fbmac I got a Windows server on AWS reserved for like 2 years that I'm not using for anything.
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@blakeyrat I don't have anything to host anyway.
Unsolicited advice: you could mine some bitcoin until you find something you want to do with this server.
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@fbmac The odds of the machine completing a single bitcoin block and earning me anything is infinitesimal.
It is kind of an interesting idea.
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@blakeyrat There is something about pools, where a lot of people join and share the coin when it's mined. But I never tested or gone too far researching this.
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@fbmac Yes, Google App Engine and Azure App Service have free tiers without time limit.
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Disclaimer for other people reading this: It's usually a net loss to pay aws for mining bitcoin, it's only being suggested because he already paid for the server and it's idle.
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@fbmac Using anything other than a spot instance for mining bit coins is pretty stupid, as you're actually losing money.
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@theBread Yeah but the server's pre-paid, so anything I do on it (as long as it doesn't rack up the bandwidth) is "free".
That said, I just looked it up and no mining pools accept CPU miners anymore, the cost/benefit isn't worth it to them.
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@blakeyrat That's why I mentioned that. You'd need a gpu instance and even then some of those probably aren't the most bang for your buck. Sometimes some researcher comes up with a new algorithm that shows how to use instances more efficiently.
@fbmac I've been lurking here for a while, and I forget what hanzo means. I just remember those 'meh' series of stories
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@theBread said in Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier:
I forget what hanzo means.
Typically, means someone replied just before you did with the same thing. They "ninja'd" a response just before you. However, the definition has become more slack with the timing aspect.
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@theBread It's that I had already said it's only considered because he already paid for an server that is idle.
AFAIK, there is no configuration that will be profitable for mining on AWS, and when it happens people create thousands of machines there and cause it to raise it's prices or bitcoin to devalue very quickly.
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@fbmac Considering the total power of the bitcoin network is in the order of 1 EH/s, i.e. a million million million SHA256 hashes per second, and a normal CPU can barely do a few million, yes, it's pretty darn hard to make money by mining anymore.
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@Onyx said in Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier:
I keep getting emails like every two weeks that "my account is about to be suspended". Good! That was the plan! Give the hell up already!
Are you sure you don't want to give them money to keep going?
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@Onyx said in Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier:
I keep getting emails like every two weeks that "my account is about to be suspended". Good! That was the plan! Give the hell up already!
oh noez protect ur account click ASW AMAzon for renews now special -79% off offer ends {{TODAY+1}
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@ben_lubar Hey ben I am steam support representative you need to reset your account id immediately click on https://staemcomnnunlty.com.ru/login and enter your password is legit link I swear
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@anonymous234 said in Amazon Screws Up Free AWS Tier:
@ben_lubar Hey ben I am steam support representative you need to reset your account id immediately click on https://staemcomnnunlty.com.ru/login and enter your password is legit link I swear
It's people like you that made Steam chat's
/me
function stop working.