Amazon EC2 Spot instances can now be stopped and started similar to On-Demand instances
You can now stop your Amazon EC2 Spot Instances backed by Amazon EBS and start them at will, instead of relying on the “Stop” interruption behavior to stop your Spot Instances when interrupted. Earlier, you could only terminate your Spot Instances but now you can stop your Spot Instances and start them from the user initiated stop state provided Spot capacity is available within your maximum price requirements.
The start/stop provides you more control over your Spot Instances in addition to the existing interruption behavior. When you stop your Spot Instance, the EBS root device and attached EBS volumes are saved and their data persists. Upon restart, the EBS root device is restored from its prior state, previously attached data volumes are reattached, and the instance retains its instance ID.
This feature is available for persistent Spot requests. You will not be charged for instance usage while your instance is stopped. EBS volume storage is charged at standard rates. You should cancel your Spot request at any time to terminate stopped instances. This feature is only available for instances with an Amazon EBS volume as their root device.
You can stop and start your EBS-backed Spot Instances through the AWS Management Console, or through the AWS SDK and AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) using the existing stop-instances and start-instances commands. For information on stopping and starting your Spot Instances, visit our technical documentation or FAQs. To learn more, visit Amazon EC2 Spot Instances.