Amazon EC2 有 Mac (M1) 機種可以租用了

2020 年年底的時候 AWS 推出用 Mac mini 配合搭建出 Mac (Intel) 機種:「Amazon EC2 推出 Mac Instance」,當初有計畫在 2021 年推出 M1 的版本:

Apple M1 Chip – EC2 Mac instances with the Apple M1 chip are already in the works, and planned for 2021.

不過就沒什麼意外的 delay 了,這次則是推出了 M1 的版本:「New – Amazon EC2 M1 Mac Instances」。

依照說明看起來還是 Mac mini,掛上 AWS Nitro System

EC2 Mac instances are dedicated Mac mini computers attached through Thunderbolt to the AWS Nitro System, which lets the Mac mini appear and behave like another EC2 instance.

然後跟 Intel 版本一樣,因為是掛進 Dedicated Hosts 的計價方式,雖然是以秒計費,但還是設定最低 24 小時的租用時間限制:

Amazon EC2 Mac instances are available as Dedicated Hosts through both On Demand and Savings Plans pricing models. The Dedicated Host is the unit of billing for EC2 Mac instances. Billing is per second, with a 24-hour minimum allocation period for the Dedicated Host to comply with the Apple macOS Software License Agreement. At the end of the 24-hour minimum allocation period, the host can be released at any time with no further commitment.

Intel 版本代號是 mac1,只有一種機種 mac1.metal,M1 版本代號是 mac2,也只有一種機種 mac2.metal

以最經典的美東一區 us-east-1 來看,mac1.metal 的 on-demand 價錢是 US$1.083/hour,mac2.metal 則是 US$0.65/hour,差不多是 60% 的價錢,便宜不少,大概是反應在硬體攤提與電費成本上了。

另外目前大家用 M1 的經驗來看,Rostta 2 未必會比原生的機器慢多少,雖然 mac1.metal 是 12 cores,mac2.metal 是 8 core,但以雲上面一定要用 Mac 跑的應用來說,馬上想的到的還是綁在 Apple 環境裡 CI 類的應用?

目前看起來主要的問題還是 24 小時的最小計費單位讓彈性低不少...

AWS 在同一區不同 AZ 頻寬費用的特別地方

剛好在處理 AWS 同一個 region 下不同 AZ 之間的傳輸費用,跟帳單互相比對,查了以後才發現跟想像中不一樣,這邊以 EC2 為例子,可以參考「Amazon EC2 On-Demand Pricing」這頁裡面的說明。

從 Internet 端進 AWS 的流量是不計費的:

Data Transfer IN To Amazon EC2 From Internet
All data transfer in $0.00 per GB

但從 AZ 進到另外一個 AZ 時,in 與 out 都要收費:

Data transferred "in" to and "out" from Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, Amazon Redshift, Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX), and Amazon ElastiCache instances, Elastic Network Interfaces or VPC Peering connections across Availability Zones in the same AWS Region is charged at $0.01/GB in each direction.

所以直接用 US$0.01/GB 的計算是不夠的,得用 US$0.02/GB 來計算。

同樣的,如果是 Public IP 與 Elastic IP 也都是雙向收費,跨 VPC 也是雙向收費,所以都要用 US$0.02/GB 來算:

IPv4: Data transferred “in” to and “out” from public or Elastic IPv4 address is charged at $0.01/GB in each direction.
IPv6: Data transferred “in” to and “out” from an IPv6 address in a different VPC is charged at $0.01/GB in each direction.

Telegram 推出 Premium 方案

Telegram 宣佈推出 Premium 了:「700 Million Users and Telegram Premium」。看了一下有點長度,就直接放 iThome 的報導:「Telegram正式推出付費訂閱服務Telegram Premium」。

更新 Telegram 後就會在 Settings 裡面看到 Premium 的設定可以選,然後看起來走 IAP,我自己是在台灣的 iOS 上面買,NT$160/mo,裡面提到的功能基本上都用不到 (大概只有 no ads),但還是買起來...

Kagi 開始收費了

在「Kagi search and Orion browser enter public beta」這邊可以看到 public beta 與收費的消息:

We decided to start charging for Kagi search while in beta status because the cost of beta usage has gone up dramatically and we are not able to sustain it. Also, we want to get some kind of a financial “airworthiness” signal and see how we stand with our positioning and outlook for sustainability.

收費的費用是 US$10/mo,剛剛先把信用卡掛上去了...

DigitalOcean 全面漲價

清 RSS reader 的時候才翻到的,DigitalOcean 宣佈漲價:「New DigitalOcean Pricing」,在 Hacker News 上有對另外一篇「公告」也有些討論:「New $4 Droplet and updated pricing」、「DigitalOcean: New $4 Droplet and updated pricing (digitalocean.com)」。

如果就比例來說,VPS 裡漲最多的就是一般性的產品線 Basic Droplets 這組,直接漲了 20%,其他的翻了一下舊的 pricing 頁面,看起來大多在 20% 以下,除了 IPv4 的費用 (這個倒是知道發生什麼事情)。

VPS 的 $5/mo 1GB 競爭算是很激烈的,算是頂標,這次 DigitalOcean 主動漲價,沒意外應該是會有不少人開始規劃搬家?接下來應該看看另外兩家的動作...

看了一下另外兩家最近的情況,Linode 在二月被 Akamai 買走之後目前主要是推出了 Managed Databases 這個服務,看起來速度慢下來不少。(不過 Linode 推新產品的速度本來就不快)

Vultr 還是照慣例丟了一堆東西出來,在新的據點開機房,以及一些產品線...

話說回來,查資料的時候發現 DigitalOcean 有 581 人 (2020/12),Linode 則是 200+,Vultr 則是 75 (2022,engineering only),看起來 DigitalOcean 的組織頗肥的啊...

Amazon SESv2 的 Deliverability Dashboard

其實是看到「Amazon SES V2 now supports email size of up to 40MB for inbound and outbound emails by default」這篇才注意到寄信的 Amazon SES 服務有了 SESv2,原文主要是講放寬信件的大小限制:

With this launch, the default message size limit in Amazon SES V2 increases from 10MB for email sending and 30MB for email receiving, to 40MB for both sending and receiving .

不過我跑去「Amazon SES pricing」看的時候意外翻到這個貴貴的東西:

The Deliverability Dashboard (via the SES API V2) is available for a fixed price of USD $1,250 per month. This charge includes reputation monitoring for up to five domains and 25 predictive email placement tests.

然後我試著去找 Deliverability Dashboard 是什麼,卻沒有專文介紹?(還是我找錯關鍵字...)

倒是在 2018 年的時候 Amazon Pinpoint 有個公告提到 Deliverability Dashboard,價錢也是 US$1,250/mo:「Amazon Pinpoint Announces a New Email Deliverability Dashboard to Help Customers Reach their Users' Inboxes」。

本來以為是 Amazon Pinpoint 的服務轉移掛到 SESv2 下,但看「Amazon Pinpoint Pricing」這邊,好像還是在啊...

雖然用不太到,但還是一頭霧水 XDDD

AWS 流量相關的 Free Tier 增加不少...

Jeff Barr 出來公告增加 AWS 流量相關的 free tier:「AWS Free Tier Data Transfer Expansion – 100 GB From Regions and 1 TB From Amazon CloudFront Per Month」。

一般性的 data transfer 從 1GB/month/region 變成 100GB/mo,現在是 21 regions 所以不會有反例,另外大多數的人或是團隊也就固定用一兩個 region,這個 free tier 大概可以省個 $10 到 $20 左右?

Data Transfer from AWS Regions to the Internet is now free for up to 100 GB of data per month (up from 1 GB per region). This includes Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Elastic Load Balancing, and so forth. The expansion does not apply to the AWS GovCloud or AWS China Regions.

另外是 CloudFront 的部份,本來只有前 12 個月有 free tier,現在是開放到所有帳號都有,另外從 50GB/month 升到 1TB/month,這個部份的 free tier 就不少了,大概是 $100 到 $200?

Data Transfer from Amazon CloudFront is now free for up to 1 TB of data per month (up from 50 GB), and is no longer limited to the first 12 months after signup. We are also raising the number of free HTTP and HTTPS requests from 2,000,000 to 10,000,000, and removing the 12 month limit on the 2,000,000 free CloudFront Function invocations per month. The expansion does not apply to data transfer from CloudFront PoPs in China.

今年十二月才生效,要注意一下不要現在就用爽爽:

This change is effective December 1, 2021 and takes effect with no effort on your part.

這樣好像可以考慮把 blog 與 wiki 都放上去玩玩看,目前這兩個服務都是用 Cloudflare 的 free tier,HiNet 用戶基本上都是連去 Cloudflare 的美西 PoP,偶而離峰時間會用亞洲的點,但都不會是台灣的 PoP...

不過記得之前 WordPress + CloudFront 有些狀況,再研究看看要怎麼弄好了...

Wasabi 與 Storj DCS

WasabiStorj 是在看到「Will Cloudflare R2 Win Customers from Amazon S3?」這篇文章時翻到了三個 Cloud Storage Provider,文章本身我倒是沒什麼吸收...。

第一個是 BackblazeB2,這個產品平常的曝光度就還算夠。

另外是 Wasabi 的部份,其中一個賣點是免費的頻寬,但其實限制意外的多。首先是各地區的價錢:

我找了一下到底是什麼地區,目前只有看到「Wasabi Technologies Inc Status」這邊有編號 (US-East-1、US-East-2、US-Central-1、US-West-1、EU-Central-1、AP-Northeast-1),但也沒找到地區... US 的都在美國沒問題,AP-Northeast-1 應該是日本,但 EU-Central-1 是哪裡就找不到了。

另外是 pay-as-you-go 的方案最小是 1TB,如果是歐美區的話是 US$5.99:

For customers using the Wasabi pay-as-you-go pricing model, Wasabi has a minimum monthly charge associated with 1 TB of active storage. If you store less than 1 TB of active storage in your account, you will still be charged for 1 TB of storage based on the pricing associated with the storage region you are using.

然後也有 90 天的最短計價時間:

Wasabi has a minimum storage duration policy that means if stored objects are deleted before they have been stored with Wasabi for a certain number of days (90 days when using the Wasabi pay-go pricing model), a Timed Deleted Storage charge equal to the storage charge for the remaining days will apply.

另外 Wasabi's free egress policy 這邊也可以看出來他們的設計就是拿來當 storage 用,然後前面需要擋 CDN 之類的服務。

最後一個是 Storj 的 DCS,US$4/TB/month 的空間費用,與 US$7/TB 的流量費用感覺還算便宜?他的做法是把檔案拆成 80 份,然後取 29 份就可以算回來:

How many Nodes are files stored on?

80. We split each file into 80 different encrypted pieces, and each piece is stored on a different Node.

When you retrieve an object, only 29 of its 80 pieces are needed to reconstitute that object. With no central point of failure, your data is always quickly available, all over the world.

這部份是則是透過 Reed-Solomon error correction 實做:

Automate file repair and know that Reed-Solomon erasure coding enables the highest levels of durability for all files uploaded to Storj DCS.

好一陣子沒看到 Reed-Solomon 了,沒想到在這邊看到... 先不管技術的部份,看起來 Storj DCS 的價錢可以玩看看。

Cloudflare 推出 Cloudflare R2 Storage,相容於 S3 API,但沒有傳輸費用

Cloudflare 宣佈了 Cloudflare R2 Storage,相容於 S3 API,但是沒有傳輸費用:「Announcing Cloudflare R2 Storage: Rapid and Reliable Object Storage, minus the egress fees」,Hacker News 上的「Cloudflare R2 storage: Rapid and reliable object storage, minus the egress fees (cloudflare.com)」可以看一下討論,裡面有負責 R2 的 PM (帳號是 greg-m) 回答一些東西。

R2 的第一個特點就是剛剛提到的傳輸費用:一般的雲端都是傳進去不用錢,但傳出來會很貴,而 R2 其中一個主打的點就是傳出來不用錢:

R2 builds on Cloudflare’s commitment to the Bandwidth Alliance, providing zero-cost egress for stored objects — no matter your request rate. Egress bandwidth is often the largest charge for developers utilizing object storage and is also the hardest charge to predict. Eliminating it is a huge win for open-access to data stored in the cloud.

另外 storage cost 也算低,S3 目前的費用是 US$0.023/GB/month (拿 us-east-1 相比),而 R2 目前的定價是 US$0.015/GB/month:

That doesn’t mean we are shifting bandwidth costs elsewhere. Cloudflare R2 will be priced at $0.015 per GB of data stored per month — significantly cheaper than major incumbent providers.

在 durability 的部份,與 S3 都是一年 11 個 9:

The core of what makes Object Storage great is reliability — we designed R2 for data durability and resilience at its core. R2 will provide 99.999999999% (eleven 9’s) of annual durability, which describes the likelihood of data loss.

目前還沒有公開,算是先對市場放話:

R2 is currently under development — you can sign up here to join the waitlist for access.

有幾個點還蠻有趣的,第一個是 Cloudflare 自己在推的 Bandwidth Alliance 裡有不少 VPS 跟 Cloudflare 之間的流量是不計頻寬費用的,所以等於是 VPS 到 R2 不計費,而 R2 到 VPS 也不計費,但要注意 VPS 自己也都有在推 object storage。

像是 Vultr 的 US$5 方案包括了 250GB 的空間與 1TB 的頻寬,扣掉頻寬的部份 (可以透過 Cloudflare 處理),相當於是 US$0.02/GB。

Linode 也類似,US$5 的方案包括了 250GB 的空間與 500GB 的頻寬,算出來也是 US$0.02/GB。

Backblaze 也有類似的產品 B2,US$0.005/GB/month 的儲存費用以及 $0.01/GB 的傳輸費用,但頻寬的部份也可以透過 Cloudflare 處理。

這個產品出來以後可以再看看如何,但看起來是蠻有趣的。對目前的雲端商應該還好 (因為資料進 R2 還是有費用),但對這些 VPS 來說應該是有蠻大的衝擊...

Cloudflare Images

Cloudflare Images 開放付費使用了:「Cloudflare Images Now Available to Everyone」。

檔案傳到 Cloudflare 上面,然後另外收處理費用:

You pay $5/month for every 100,000 stored images and $1 per 100,000 delivered images. There are no additional resizing, compute or egress costs.

檔案大小的限制是 10MB,所以 $5/month 的 storage 最多可以提供 1TB 的空間,$0.005/GB 算是很漂亮的數字,如果是小圖的話就會比較虧一些?看起來丟大圖會開心一點...

Cloudflare Images offers multiple ways to upload your images. We accept all the common file formats including JPEG, GIF and WEBP. Each image uploaded to Images can be up to 10 MB.

然後支援的檔案格式有常見的 GIFJPEGPNG 以及 WebP

When a client requests an image, Cloudflare Images will pick the optimal format between WebP, PNG, JPEG and GIF.

另外有計畫要支援 AVIF

We’re just getting started with Cloudflare Images. Here are some of the features we plan to support soon:

AVIF support for even smaller file sizes and faster load times.

沒提到 durability,不知道會有多少...