Where does your software plug in?
The BidServer is an online tool delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). No IT setup is needed.
Are your algorithms proprietary?
Yes, our machine learning bidding algorithms are proprietary.
How does BidElastic integrate with client infrastructure?
We provide a simple integration with client infrastructure through HTTPS protocols and outputting JSON files.
Security
What if the bidding mechanism fails?
As a fall-back position BidElastic automatically restores the default configuration.
Do you have acces to client data?
There’s a Chinese wall between BidElastic and client data. Our cloud configuration and analysis are completely separated from access client data stored on the cloud.
What kind of transfer protocols does BidElastic offer for the cloud?
We provide HTTPS, VPN, SSH, encrypted sealed physical device dispatched to Amazon and direct fiber connection to Amazon infrastructure. For files over 1 TB, we use encrypted sealed physical device dispatched to Amazon. Usually, transfer to the cloud is required for the initial dataset. Other data is collected and processed in the cloud.
Savings
How much will I save?
We’ve observed cases where clients saved as much as 90% of the regular on-demand costs as a result of migrating to EC2 spot instances and using BidServer.
How much do I have to pay you until I see some cost savings?
Absolutely nothing. We charge you only after your cloud costs are cut.
How long does it take until I see some cost savings?
From the first moment on you deploy BidElastic. You will see your savings on your next billing cycle.
Data location is essential to my business. Can you ensure that my data stays where it is?
Yes.
General
If we engage BidElastic, what will happen?
That’s straightforward. We’ll first analyze and refine your configurations either remotely or on premises so you begin to save right away. We will then discuss with you options for migrating you to spot instance for even more savings. Finally, we’ll monitor your cloud activity to forecast spikes and downswings for planning and early warning.
What about pricing?
There’s no up-front payment. We charge a fraction of your savings as our fee. Please contact us for pricing details.
Explain the BidServer to me in one sentence.
The BidServer is an intelligent and automatic online decision making software for bidding for computing power on the AWS spot market.
From where do you modify our configurations?
We can work remotely or on premises.
Do you provide training?
We’ll stay by your side, offering you training on cloud administration tools and advice on how to optimize your cloud.
Can you give me an example for inefficient usage of cloud resources from your experience?
Sure. Have a look at the image below. It shows a sample cluster workload. Blue are underutilized computing resources; yellow are resources performing computations. We concluded that these cloud resources are not used efficiently because one cluster does not participate in computations due to misconfiguration; and the client pays for a cluster that is not used during nights and weekends. Of course we helped the client to remedy the situation.
Do you have human customer support?
The only thing we haven’t moved to the cloud is our customer support. We assure you that there will always be a person on the other end of the line.
Why should I migrate to the cloud anyway?
For four main reasons: Elasticity, reliability, security and cost.
Elasticity means that your infrastructure will always match your needs. You don’t need to over-provision and pay for underutilized resources. More importantly, you avoid the risk of under-provisioning and unhappy customers who are unable to use your services.
Clouds are reliable because infrastructure is available in several regions of the world. With most cloud services your data is automatically distributed across many data centers within your region.
Clouds are more secure than most on-premise installations. Several security aspects are centrally managed and coordinated by the cloud operator and several security layers meeting the strictest industry standards are implemented out-of-the box. Finally, managing security has very large economies of scale.
Clouds are cost-efficient. (Even more so with BidElastic.) Elasticity implies that you pay for computing resources you need. Provisioning servers around the globe is largely affected by economies of scale.
How many pricing options do I have with EC2?
Last time we downloaded the EC2 price list for region US-East-1 it was 30MB… https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonEC2/current/index.csv. You can do the math yourself or have BidElastic deal with this complexity and help you to make optimal cloud usage decisions.
How volatile are EC2 spot prices?
We monitor EC2 spot prices in real time. The two images below show spot prices for a c3.8xlarge instance over a one week period in four zones of us-east region. We provide automated decision making algorithms with optimal bidding on AWS EC2 spot market and optimal computation state check-pointing intervals integrated with preemptive and proactive autoscaling.
