Capacity overview

Cluster Director supports several consumption options to help you get and use compute resources. This document provides an overview of how you can obtain capacity for each consumption option.

How to obtain capacity

The following table describes how you can obtain capacity for each consumption option.

Consumption option	Process for obtaining capacity	Pricing implications
Future reservations for blocks of capacity	To get future reservation resources, the process is as follows: Reserve capacity by contacting your account team. Quota is automatically increased before capacity is delivered. No action is required from you. When you create a cluster, select the Use reservation consumption option and then specify your reservation. Cluster Director creates the cluster from your reserved capacity.	You're charged for the entire reservation period, whether or not you use the reserved resources for the entire period. For more information, see the Reservation billing section of the Compute Engine reservations documentation.
Future reservations for less than 90 days (in calendar mode)	To get future reservation resources, the process is as follows: Search for available capacity and reserve resources by using the Google Cloud console, gcloud CLI, or Compute Engine API. No quota is charged and no action is required from you. When you create a cluster, select the Use reservation consumption option and then specify your reservation. Cluster Director creates the cluster from your reserved capacity.	You're charged for the entire reservation period, whether or not you use the reserved resources for the entire period. For more information, see Dynamic Workload Scheduler pricing.
Flex-start	For this consumption option, no reservation is required. To get Flex-start resources, the process is as follows: You must request preemptible quota for the GPU machine type that you want to use. When you create a cluster, select the Use Flex-start consumption option. When your requested capacity becomes available, Cluster Director provisions your cluster. You obtain resources for up to seven days.	You're charged when the resources are in use. Resources provisioned using Flex-start automatically get discounts through Dynamic Workload Scheduler pricing.
Spot	For this consumption option, no reservation is required. To get Spot resources, the process is as follows: You must request preemptible quota for the GPU machine type that you want to use. When you create a cluster, select the Use Spot consumption option. Cluster Director provisions your cluster, but it can be preempted at any time.	You're charged when the resources are in use. Spot VMs automatically get discounts through Spot VMs pricing.
On-demand	For this consumption option, no reservation is required. To get on-demand resources, the process is as follows: If you don't already have enough CPU quota for the number of vCPUs you plan to provision, request a quota adjustment. When you create a cluster, select the Use on-demand consumption option. Cluster Director provisions your cluster.	You're charged when the resources are in use. For more information, see VM instance pricing.