Regional and zonal Reserved Instances (scope)
When you purchase a Reserved Instance, you determine the scope of the Reserved Instance. The scope is either regional or zonal.
-
Regional: When you purchase a Reserved Instance for a Region, it's referred to as a regional Reserved Instance.
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Zonal: When you purchase a Reserved Instance for a specific Availability Zone, it's referred to as a zonal Reserved Instance.
The scope does not affect the price. You pay the same price for a regional or zonal
Reserved Instance. For more information about Reserved Instance pricing, see Key variables that determine Reserved Instance
pricing and
Amazon EC2
Reserved Instances Pricing
For more information about how to specify the scope of a Reserved Instance, see RI
Attributes
Differences between regional and zonal Reserved Instances
The following table highlights some key differences between regional Reserved Instances and zonal Reserved Instances:
| Regional Reserved Instances | Zonal Reserved Instances | |
|---|---|---|
|
Ability to reserve capacity |
A regional Reserved Instance does not reserve capacity. |
A zonal Reserved Instance reserves capacity in the specified Availability Zone. |
|
Availability Zone flexibility |
The Reserved Instance discount applies to instance usage in any Availability Zone in the specified Region. |
No Availability Zone flexibility—the Reserved Instance discount applies to instance usage in the specified Availability Zone only. |
|
Instance size flexibility |
The Reserved Instance discount applies to instance usage within the instance family, regardless of size. Only supported on Amazon Linux/Unix Reserved Instances with default tenancy. For more information, see Instance size flexibility determined by normalization factor. |
No instance size flexibility—the Reserved Instance discount applies to instance usage for the specified instance type and size only. |
|
Queuing a purchase |
You can queue purchases for regional Reserved Instances. |
You can't queue purchases for zonal Reserved Instances. |
For more information and examples, see How Reserved Instance discounts are applied.
