User guide

Spot Instances can significantly lower your Amazon EC2 costs for batch processing, scientific research,
image processing, video encoding, data and web crawling, financial analysis, and testing. Additionally,
Spot Instances can provide access to large amounts of additional compute capacity when your need for
the capacity is not urgent.
This tutorial provides a quick overview of some advanced Spot Request features, such as detailed options
to create Spot requests, alternative methods for launching Spot Instances, and methods to manage your
instances.This tutorial is not meant to be a complete list of all advanced topics associated with Spot
Instances. Instead, it gives you a quick reference of code samples for some of the commonly used methods
for managing Spot Requests and Spot Instances.
Prerequisites
To use this tutorial you need to be signed up for Amazon Web Services (AWS). If you have not yet signed
up for AWS, go to the Amazon Web Services website, and click Create an AWS Account in the upper
right corner of the page. In addition, you also need to install the AWS SDK for Java.
If you are using the Eclipse development environment, we recommend that you install the AWS Toolkit
for Eclipse. The Toolkit for Eclipse includes the latest version of the AWS SDK for Java.
Step 1: Setting Up Your Credentials
To begin using this code sample, you need to populate your credentials in the
AwsCredentials.properties file. Specifically, you need to populate your secretKey and accessKey.
Copy and paste your access key ID and secret access key into the AwsCredentials.properties file.
To get your access key ID and secret access key
Access keys consist of an access key ID and secret access key, which are used to sign programmatic
requests that you make to AWS. If you don't have access keys, you can create them by using the AWS
Management Console. We recommend that you use IAM access keys instead of AWS root account
access keys. IAM lets you securely control access to AWS services and resources in your AWS account.
Note
To create access keys, you must have permissions to perform the required IAM actions. For
more information, see Granting IAM User Permission to Manage Password Policy and Credentials
in Using IAM.
1. Go to the IAM console.
2. From the navigation menu, click Users.
3. Select your IAM user name.
4. Click User Actions, and then click Manage Access Keys.
5. Click Create Access Key.
Your keys will look something like this:
• Access key ID example: AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
• Secret access key example: wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
6. Click Download Credentials, and store the keys in a secure location.
Your secret key will no longer be available through the AWS Management Console; you will have
the only copy. Keep it confidential in order to protect your account, and never email it. Do not share
it outside your organization, even if an inquiry appears to come from AWS or Amazon.com. No one
who legitimately represents Amazon will ever ask you for your secret key.
Version v1.0.0
46
AWS SDK for Java Developer Guide
Tutorial: Advanced Amazon EC2 Spot Request
Management