Google Cloud Platform for Developers

Preemptible instances

Preemptible instances are Compute Engine instances that are made available at a significant discount over standard instances. These are generally instances that would otherwise go unused, and may be reclaimed at any time with very little forewarning. Preemptible machines are a great option for applications that do not require high availability, such as certain batch processes.

These instances come with several limitations. They are not capable of undergoing live migrations, and they generally have a shorter shutdown window than standard instances before being terminated. A common pattern is to architect solutions that leverage preemptible machines when possible, and a fallback of standard machines to meet uptime requirements. ...