When the vCPU and memory specifications of a subscription Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance exceed your business requirements and you have the permissions to downgrade instance configurations, you can downgrade the instance type of the instance. After you downgrade the instance type of the instance, you must start the instance for the new instance type to take effect.

Prerequisites

Make sure that the subscription instance whose instance type you want to downgrade meets the following requirements:
  • The instance is in the Stopped (Stopped) state.
  • The instance family to which the instance belongs supports instance type downgrades. For more information, see Instance families that support instance type changes.
  • The instance does not have a renewal and configuration downgrade task in process. If the instance has a renewal and configuration downgrade task in process, you must wait until the task is complete before you can perform the instance type downgrade.

Background information

When you use the configuration downgrade feature to downgrade the instance type of an instance, take note of the following items:
  • The usage of the instance determines whether the configuration downgrade feature is supported.
  • You must select a different instance type for the instance. You cannot downgrade only vCPUs or the memory size.
  • You can downgrade the instance type of an instance multiple times, but the interval between consecutive downgrades must be at least 5 minutes.
  • A monthly quota is enforced on the number of times you can downgrade instance types within each Alibaba Cloud account. The monthly quota is determined based on your historical consumption. The actual quota is displayed on the Downgrade page in the ECS console. If the monthly downgrade quota is exhausted, you cannot downgrade instance types until the quota is reset on the first day of the next month.
    Note A configuration downgrade may result in a refund. The following formula is used to calculate the refund amount: Refund amount = Remaining amount of the configuration price before the downgrade - Price of the new configurations.
In addition to downgrading the instance type, you can also use the configuration downgrade feature to perform the following operations:
  • Downgrade fixed bandwidths.
  • Change the billing method for network usage from pay-by-bandwidth to pay-by-traffic.
  • Change the billing method of disks that are attached to instances from subscription to pay-as-you-go.

Downgrade the instance type of a single instance

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Instances.
  3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  4. Find the subscription instance whose instance type you want to downgrade. In the Actions column, click Upgrade /Downgrade.
  5. In the Upgrade/Downgrade Wizard dialog box, choose Downgrade > Instance Type, and then click Continue.
  6. On the Downgrade page, complete the instance type settings.
    Note Only instances types with lower specifications can be selected. For information about whether the instance type of an instance can be downgraded and which instance types the instance can be downgraded to, see the information displayed on the Downgrade page.
  7. Read the notes. Read and select ECS Service Terms.
  8. Confirm the refund amount, click Downgrade Now, and then perform the subsequent operations as instructed.
  9. Start the instance.
    The new instance type immediately takes effect after the instance is started.

Downgrade the instance types of multiple instances at a time

  1. Log on to the ECS console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Instances & Images > Instances.
  3. In the top navigation bar, select a region.
  4. Select subscription instances whose instance types you want to downgrade. In the lower part of the page, choose More > Configuration Change > Upgrade/Downgrade.
  5. In the Upgrade/Downgrade Wizard dialog box, select Downgrade Instance Type (Only for Stopped Instances of the Same Instance Type) and click Continue.
  6. On the Downgrade Instance Type page, configure the instance type settings.
    If a selected instance does not have the same instance type as other selected instances or if the instance resides in a different zone from other instances, the instance is removed from the batch. You can perform operations only on the instances that meet the filter conditions, as shown in the following figure. Downgrade the instance types of multiple instances at a time
  7. Read the notes. Read and select ECS Service Terms.
  8. Confirm the refund amount, click Downgrade Now, and then perform the subsequent operations as instructed.
  9. Start the instances.
    The new instance type immediately takes effect after the instance is started.