Google announces the availability of what it calls Preemptible VMs-- a lower-cost options for customers wanting to run low-priority batch jobs on unused compute resources.
As the search giant puts it, "Preemptible VMs are the same as regular instances except for one key difference-- they may be shut down at any time." As such the system is best suited for distributed fault-tolerant workloads that do not need the immediacy of a typical cloud VM.
The use of Preemptible VMs comes with a 70% discount over on-demand counterparts, and scale from sizes ranging from 50 to 50000 cores.
In addition Google announces the Cycle Computing large scale compute workload management product suite is now available on Google Compute Engine, including the use of Preemptive VMs.
The company says CycleCloud with Preemptible VMs recently found use in the fight against cancer, as it managed to crunch 30 years of Broad Institute cancer research computations "in an afternoon."