About instances that use the reservation-bound model

This document describes Compute Engine instances that use the reservation-bound provisioning model, including their benefits and creation requirements.

When you create an instance, you must also specify the underlying provisioning model, which defines the availability, pricing, and lifespan for your instances. The reservation-bound provisioning model lets you create A4X Max, A4X, A4, or A3 Ultra instances, both bare metal and virtual machine instances, by using reserved capacity from a future reservation in calendar mode or future reservation in AI Hypercomputer.

The reservation-bound provisioning model offers the following benefits:

• Cost control: you don't incur additional charges when you create instances by using your reserved capacity. You only incur charges for resources that aren't part of your reservation, such as disks or IP addresses.

• Lifecycle management: based on the termination action that you specify when you create instances, Compute Engine stops or deletes the instance at the end of the reservation period.

Understand instances that use the reservation-bound provisioning model

The following sections describe the requirements that you apply when you create compute instances by using the reservation-bound provisioning model.

Instance creation prerequisites

To use the reservation-bound provisioning model to create compute instances, you must first reserve resources. You can reserve resources as follows:

• To reserve up to 80 A4 or A3 Ultra instances, and for up to 90 days, use future reservation requests in calendar mode.

• To reserve more than 80 A4X Max, A4X, A4, or A3 Ultra instances, and for longer than 90 days, use future reservation requests in AI Hypercomputer.

If Google Cloud approves your future reservation request, then Compute Engine automatically creates (auto-creates) a reservation at the start of your reservation period. You can then use the reservation to create instances.

Instance creation requirements

To create a compute instance by using the reservation-bound provisioning model, you must specify the following configurations:

• The instance and the reservation must have matching properties. You can only use your reserved capacity to create instances if the instance and auto-created reservation properties exactly match. For more information, see the requirements for consuming reservations.

• The instance must specifically target the reservation for consumption. When you create an instance, you must specify the name of the auto-created reservation to target for consumption, as well as set the reservationAffinity field to SPECIFIC_RESERVATION. For more information, see Consume a specifically targeted reservation.

• The instance must use the reservation-bound provisioning model. When you create an instance, you must specify the reservation-bound provisioning model as follows:

  • In the Google Cloud console, in the Provisioning model list, select Reservation-bound.

  • In the Google Cloud CLI, include the --provisioning-model=RESERVATION_BOUND flag in the command.

  • In the Compute Engine API, include the "provisioningModel": "RESERVATION_BOUND" field in the request body.

• The instance must be stopped or deleted at the reservation end time. When you create an instance, you must specify whether to stop or delete the instance at the reservation's end time by using the instanceTerminationAction field. For more information, see how to limit the run time of an instance.

After you create the instance, the instance starts running and keeps running until you stop or delete it, or until the Compute Engine stops or deletes the instance at the reservation's end time.

Quota

When you create a compute instance by using the reservation-bound provisioning model, you don't need quota for the reserved resources that you use to create the instance. You only need quota for the resources that aren't part of your reservation, such as disks and IP addresses. For more information about the different types of quota, see Allocation quotas.

Pricing

When you create a compute instance by using the reservation-bound provisioning model, you incur charges as follows:

• Charges start when you create the instance. However, you don't incur additional charges for the reserved resources that you use to create your instance. You only incur charges for the resources that aren't part of the reservation, such as disks or IP addresses. For more information, see the billing for reservations.

• Charges stop when the reservation that you used to create the instance reaches its end time. At that time, Compute Engine deletes the reservation, and stops or deletes your instance based on the termination action that is specified in the instance.

  Important: After Compute Engine stops an instance and changes its state to STOPPING, you continue to incur charges for any resources that are attached to the instance, such as disks or GPUs. To avoid unnecessary costs, detach and delete any resources that you no longer need, or delete the instance altogether. For more information, see the pricing for an instance's uptime.

Limitations

Compute instances that you create by using the reservation-bound provisioning model can only use the following machine series:

• A4X Max

• A4X

• A4

• A3 Ultra

To inquire about using other accelerator-optimized machine series with the reservation-bound provisioning model, contact your account team or the sales team.

What's next

• Create a compute instance that uses the reservation-bound model

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