If you want to use an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) subscription instance that has a relatively short subscription duration (such as three months) for a long period of time, we recommend that you enable auto-renewal for the instance to reduce administrative costs, ensure business continuity, and prevent data loss caused by the stop of the instance on expiration.
Prerequisites
To enable auto-renewal for instances, make sure that the following requirements are met:
Subscription instances are created. The instances have not expired or have expired for less than 14 days.
The balance of your account, including credit balance and vouchers, is sufficient to cover the instance renewal fees.
Auto-renewal rules
Deduction times
Alibaba Cloud first attempts to deduct the renewal fee for an instance three days before the instance expires. If this deduction attempt fails due to insufficient account balance, Alibaba Cloud attempts to deduct the fee up to four times on the following days until all the allowed deduction attempts fail or until the payment is completed: the day before the instance expires (T-1), the day when the instance expires (T), the seventh day after the instance expires (T+6), and the fifteenth day after the instance expires (T+14). If the fee deduction fails, Alibaba Cloud notifies you by email. Check your mailbox and handle the failure at the earliest opportunity to prevent the instance from being unexpectedly stopped.
Renewal cycle
Instances are automatically renewed based on the renewal duration that you specify when you enable auto-renewal. For example, if you select three months, your instance is automatically renewed for three months each time before the instance expires.
Manual renewal after auto-renewal is enabled
If you manually renew an instance after you enable auto-renewal for the instance, the instance is automatically renewed based on the new expiration date.
For more information about renewal rules, see Renewal guide for the international site (alibabacloud.com).
Enable auto-renewal when you create ECS instances
Use the ECS console
You can enable auto-renewal on the instance buy page when you create ECS instances.
After you enable auto-renewal on the instance buy page, an auto-renewal cycle (also known as renewal duration) is automatically configured for the ECS instances. This default auto-renewal cycle varies based on the subscription duration of the instances. For example, the default auto-renewal cycle of a monthly subscription instance is one month. If the default auto-renewal cycle does not meet your business requirements, you can specify a different auto-renewal cycle as described in Configure auto-renewal settings after the instance is created.
Call an API operation
Call the RunInstances operation with the AutoRenew parameter set to true to create ECS instances for which auto-renewal is enabled.
Configure auto-renewal settings
Use the ECS console
To enable or disable auto-renewal or change the renewal duration for an existing ECS instance, perform the following steps:
Go to ECS console - Instance.
In the top navigation bar, select the region and resource group of the resource that you want to manage.
Find the subscription instance that you want to manage and click its ID to go to the instance details page. In the upper-right corner of the page, choose All Actions > Fees > Configure Auto-renewal.
Configure auto-renewal settings.
To enable auto-renewal, turn on Enable Auto-renewal, specify a value for the Renewal Duration parameter, and then click Confirm. When the subscription instance expires and your Alibaba Cloud account has sufficient balance, fees are automatically deducted from your account balance to renew the instance for the next duration.
To disable auto-renewal, turn off Enable Auto-renewal and click Confirm.
To change the renewal duration, select a different duration when auto-renewal is enabled and click Confirm.
Call an API operation
You may be charged for the ModifyInstanceAutoRenewAttribute operation.
Call the ModifyInstanceAutoRenewAttribute operation and specify the IDs of up to 100 subscription instances by using the InstanceId parameter to batch configure auto-renewal settings for the instances.
To query the renewal prices, call the DescribeRenewalPrice operation before you configure auto-renewal settings.
To enable auto-renewal, set the
RenewalStatusparameter toAutoRenewaland specify values for theDurationandPeriodUnitparameters.To disable auto-renewal, set the
RenewalStatusparameter toNormal.NoteYou can set the
RenewalStatusparameter toNotRenewalto enable non-renewal for subscription instances. If you enable non-renewal for a subscription instance, Alibaba Cloud sends only a non-renewal notification three days before the instance expires. You can change the value of theRenewalStatusparameter toNormal. Then, manually renew the instance or enable auto-renewal for the instance.To configure or change the renewal duration, set the
RenewalStatusparameter toAutoRenewaland specify values for theDurationandPeriodUnitparameters.
View the auto-renewal status of an ECS instance
Use the ECS console
To check whether auto-renewal is enabled for an instance and the auto-renewal duration of the instance, perform the following steps:
Go to ECS console - Instance.
In the top navigation bar, select the region and resource group of the resource that you want to manage.
Find the subscription instance that you want to query and click its ID to go to the Instance Details tab. In the Configuration Information section, check the Auto-renewal parameter to obtain the auto-renewal status.
If Auto-Renewal<X>Weeks/<X>Months/<X>Years is disabled, auto-renewal is enabled.
If Manual Renewal or Non-renewal is disabled, auto-renewal is disabled.
Call an API operation
Call the DescribeInstanceAutoRenewAttribute operation and specify the IDs of up to 100 subscription instances by using the InstanceId parameter to batch query the auto-renewal attribute of the instances, including whether auto-renewal is enabled and the auto-renewal durations of the instances.
You can also specify the RenewalStatus parameter to query instances in a specific renewal state.