Using compute blocks

Overview of compute blocks

Blocks let you access dedicated VMs for short-term reservations for exactly your desired duration, as low as 3 hours to as long as 2 weeks with 1-hour increment flexibility. You pay for exactly what you need (e.g., a 1 week training job). Prices are dynamically determined based on the spot market price and remain fixed for the duration of your reservation. Payment must be provided during the reservation flow to confirm your reservation.

Creating a blocks reservation

When on the Compute Blocks tab, click Schedule compute block. From here there are 4 steps:

1. Selection -- Choose a name for your instance (note it can only contain lowercase letters, numbers, or hyphens), instance type, and quantity of instances. Note if you select a 8x instance type and 2 instances, you are getting 16 GPUs.

2. Reservation -- Select the duration you would like the compute for and your start date. You can pick from popular durations or customize your own down to 3 hours up to 14 days with 1 hour increments. The start date calendar will only show you available blocks to pick from.

3. Confirmation - Review the final details of your reservation including pricing. You may choose whether you are paying via ACH or Card here (note Card incurs a 2.9% fee). The reservation will be held for 5 minutes while you confirm final details and pay.

4. Payment - A Stripe window will open allowing you to pay and confirm the reservation.

The reservation will appear on the Compute Blocks tab as an upcoming block. Email reminders will be sent for the reservation confirmation, before the reservation starts, and as the reservation ends.

Accessing your Compute Block

The connection details to your instances can be found either in the Instances or Compute Blocks tab. Note only the SSH keys that existed at time of creation will be added to the instance (i.e., adding new keys in Security will not automatically add to your spun-up instances). The VMs will be automatically spun up when your reservation time occurs and spun down when it ends.

Extending your Compute Block

This is currently in the backlog to offer extensions. For now, please create a new Compute Block or reach out to us via Slack of [e-mail] for us to manually extend the reservation.

Canceling your Compute Block

We do not support canceling your Compute Block as payment is done in advance. However, we can work out a solution if you reach out to us on Slack or [e-mail].