Reserved Instances (RI)

Learn more about Reserved Instances offered by North.Cloud's liquid cloud commitments.

AWS Reserved Instances & Commitment Plans

North offers flexible, risk-managed Reserved Instance (RI) and commitment options for AWS services where compute savings plans don’t fully reach—including RDS, OpenSearch, ElastiCache, Redshift, and DynamoDB. By participating in our program, North helps you capture 3-year pricing optimizations for these critical AWS databases and analytics platforms, all while reducing your exposure to long, inflexible commitments.

Reserved Instances vs. Savings Plans: Key Differences

The main distinction between Reserved Instances and Savings Plans is how commitment is managed—especially for longer (3-year) terms. In AWS, a 3-year Reserved Instance typically requires an up-front payment, locking you into specific resources for the entire term to secure deeper savings. This model encourages you to maintain your commitment for as long as possible, since the most significant savings generally accrue only after passing the break-even point—which may take many months.

With North’s approach, you still make the same up-front payment for the Reserved Instance to access these discounted rates. The key difference is that North gives you the flexibility to recoup your remaining commitment at any time—usually once savings begin to accumulate in your account. This means you can confidently participate in RIs and other AWS commitments, without the worry of being trapped if you need to upgrade instances, migrate databases, or shift providers. As your architecture and business needs evolve, North ensures you retain maximum value from your commitments while minimizing the risk and downside of traditional long-term lock-ins.

The Nuances & Risks of Reserved Instances

AWS RIs are more nuanced than Savings Plans. Instead of broadly covering your usage, they apply to specific products, instance types, regions, and can also be tied to operating system or engine details (especially for RDS, ElastiCache, OpenSearch, and Redshift). If you run diverse fleets—many instance types, families, or regions—it’s more complex (and riskier) to re-home or re-purpose these RIs if your needs change. Flexibility is further reduced if you change your database engines or underlying technology.

North’s RI Saver program actively manages these details for you:

• Clear Breakdown by Product & Type: Our app provides visibility for each covered service: RDS, OpenSearch, ElastiCache, Redshift, and DynamoDB.

  • Up-front payment amount

  • Expected total savings

  • Break-even points (combined or per-instance)

  • Differentiation between North-managed flex commitments and AWS direct commitments

• Dynamic Reservation Health: Instantly see which commitments carry risk if your architecture changes and where you have flexibility thanks to North’s marketplace and management features.

• Customer Success Guidance: Our expert team works with you to review your current architecture, migration plans, and anticipated scale—helping you make smarter, risk-managed decisions.

Special Note on DynamoDB Commitments

DynamoDB is handled a bit differently within AWS’s reservation and savings system. Commitments (such as RIs and savings plans) in DynamoDB are only calculated against Provisioned capacity—not OnDemand usage. This means you might have substantial DynamoDB costs but see little or no RI coverage unless you’re proactively reserving table capacity. This functionality is often underutilized, despite the fact that DynamoDB reserved capacity offers savings as high as 77% for customers that heavily use DynamoDB. North makes this opportunity visible, guiding you toward the highest-impact reservation strategies and savings.

How to Use North for AWS Reserved Instance Optimization

Follow these steps to find, evaluate, and subscribe to the right Reserved Instance (RI) and commitment plans for your AWS workloads using North’s platform:

1. Navigate to the Reserved Instances Tab

• Go to the Commitments page in your North dashboard.

• Select the Reserved Instances tab to start exploring available options.

2. Explore Savings by Product

• The interface separates each product (RDS, OpenSearch, ElastiCache, Redshift, and DynamoDB) into its own dropdown section.

• Within each dropdown, you’ll see the amount of available savings specific to that product, making it easy to focus on your highest-impact opportunities.

3. Analyze Your Spend and Purchase Types

• North presents a visual graph showing your spend breakdown for the last 30 days.

• The graph clearly distinguishes On-Demand spend from Reserved and other purchase types, helping you spot exactly where RIs could drive savings in your environment.

4. Review Reservation Details in Your Cart

• When you add reservations to your cart, click on Details to see a comprehensive view of each recommended Reserved Instance.

• For every option, North will show:

  • The exact region, instance type, engine, operating system, and any other relevant details.

  • The partial upfront payment required.

  • The total projected savings.

  • A personalized break-even graph based on your recent usage and the selected commitment. This graph helps you understand how many months it would take to recoup your initial payment and start realizing net savings.

We recommend only subscribing to RIs when you are confident your usage will last at least until the break-even point. This helps you maximize value and avoid premature commitments.