This is some much needed good news! For low traffic apps, increasing free instance hours from 24 to 28 will make it possible again to stay within the free quota (as long as 'max idle instances' on the 'application settings' page is set to 1.) This will make a lot of people happy.
However, for other apps, I think it would be better if the python price discount was confirmed to stay in effect until some set period of time after concurrency becomes available (rather than the relatively vague statement given here.) If estimates could be provided ASAP as to how many instance hours will likely be used when concurrency becomes available, that would prevent another round of pricing shock kicking in. I would guess that for many apps, the number of 'active instances' will be reduced to a number closer to 'total cpu seconds used per second' (from the dashboard charts) plus some overhead. For high latency apps, such as those which are doing a lot of urlfetching, I expect that memory usage will become the limiting factor, but they will do much better from concurrency. For example, once concurrency is available and the 50% python price discount has ended, an app which has 10 active instances on average, and total cpu seconds per second of 6, will probably increase in instance cost by at least 20% (since cpu usage is high enough that only a little under 2 requests can be dealt with concurently and at full speed by a single instance). However, an app which has 100 active instances, and total cpu seconds per second of 6, might be looking at a saving of 80% (if memory usage is low enough that 10 requests can be dealt with concurrently by a single instance). I am probably making several bad assumptions here, so I would prefer Google to be making these estimates on a per application basis, no matter how approximate and non-binding those estimates might be. On Sep 9, 7:57 pm, "Gregory D'alesandre" <gr...@google.com> wrote: > Hey All, > > I wanted to highlight that we just announced a few changes based on the > feedback we've > gotten:http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/09/few-adjustments-to-app-en... > . > > I hope that helps to alleviate some of the concerns many of you have had. > > Greg > > Full text is here: > ----- > Last week we rolled out side-by-side > billing<http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/08/50-credit-for-new-billing...> > to > give you a more detailed preview of how you’ll be affected by the price > changes that we announced in > May<http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2011/05/year-ahead-for-google-app...>. > We received a variety of feedback and have made a few important changes > based on it. Our intent is to be as open and transparent about the changes > as possible and to give you enough time to prepare. In that spirit, our > Engineering Director has also shared some of his personal > thoughts<https://plus.google.com/110401818717224273095/posts/AA3sBWG92gu> > . > > We understand that the new rates surprised some of you. We’ve been listening > closely to your feedback, and we wanted to share an update on the changes > we’re making to help ensure you have an accurate picture of how the new > pricing will affect your app. Although prices will increase, we’re confident > that you’ll find App Engine still provides great value. > > Based on your feedback we’re taking the following steps: > > - *Extended review period*: We’re now giving you almost eight weeks > before introducing the new pricing. You now have until November 1 to > configure and tune your application to manage your costs. > - *Increased free Instance Hours*: We are increasing the number of free > Instance Hours from 24 to 28. This means that people who are using a free > app to try out App Engine can run a single instance all day with a few > spikes and still remain below our free quota. This will be reflected in > the > comparison bills soon. > - *Extended discount*: We’ll continue to offer the 50% discount on > instance prices until December 1st, at which time Python 2.7 should be > available. Python 2.7 will include support for concurrent requests, which > could further lower your costs. > - *Faster Usage Reports*: We appreciate the importance of quickly being > able to see the effect your tuning has on your bill and starting today > we’ll > provide your Usage Report (and the included comparison bills) within one > day > instead of the previous three. > - *Better analysis tools*: We are working on better ways for you to model > the cost of your apps. We will add the “billing” line into the instances > graph on the Admin Console. We’re adding datastore billing information into > the dev console to making it easier for you to track how the changes you > make affect your bill, which should also help lower the cost. > - *Premier accounts*: we know a lot of our customers are eagerly awaiting > Premier accounts to get operational support, offline billing, unlimited > accounts, and the SLA. So we will not wait until November 1st for this, but > rather launch Premier accounts as soon as possible. If you are interested > in a Premier account, please contact us at > appengine_premier_reque...@google.com. > > We also wanted to share some of the main ways for you to lower your bill and > get a better sense of the true cost of App Engine: > > - *Set Max Idle instances*: Setting Max Idle Instances to a lower level > will help lower your costs as we will only charge for idle instances up to > the maximum you set. This could impact your performance so it’s worth > reading up on the ramifications. > - *Always-On reflected in bills*: Currently the side-by-side bills still > include the cost of always-on even though it will be retired when the new > pricing launches (to be replaced by min idle instances). We’re working on a > fix for this. Until then you can comfortably subtract 48 instance hours per > day from the estimate. > - *Reserved instance hours*: The simplest way to lower the charge for > instance hours is to consider using reserved instance hours. They are 37.5% > cheaper than on-demand, but you do need to commit to a certain number of > them over the course of a week. > - *Managing resources*: Check out this > article<http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/managing-resources.html>, > which provides more helpful advice on how to efficiently manage your > resources and lower costs. > > We launched App Engine in preview three years ago to make it easier for you > to build, maintain and scale web applications. Since then, we’ve added many > features like Java and Go language support, created a High Replication > Datastore, and added many other APIs. And there’s a lot more cool stuff to > come. It’s heartening to us that so many developers- 150,000 and counting- > have chosen to use App Engine to run their apps. While we can’t continue to > offer App Engine at our original prices, we can commit to listening to your > feedback, acting on it, and working hard to give you a great platform for > your apps at the most competitive price possible. If you find that’s not the > case, or have any questions about this at all, please feel free to contact > us at appengine_updated_pric...@google.com. > > The App Engine Team -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
