Convert a VM to a committed plan

Convert an hourly TIR Virtual Machine to a committed plan when you know it will run for weeks or months: you pay for a fixed term upfront at a discounted price. The VM keeps its plan, its disk, and its address, and keeps running. Only the way it is billed changes. For how hourly and committed billing compare, see Billing options for TIR Virtual Machines.

Before you begin

• An hourly VM that is running, marked Hourly in Manage VMs. A VM on a private cluster is already covered by the cluster’s plan, so Convert to Committed is for VMs outside a private cluster.
• Permission to update VMs in the project. See TIR Access Control.
• On a prepaid account, enough credit for the full price of the term. The prices are on E2E’s pricing page.

What changes once the VM is committed

A commitment holds for its whole term, so check these points before you convert:

• The full price of the term is taken from your prepaid balance at the moment you convert, and that payment covers the plan for the whole term.
• A committed VM keeps running for the whole term. You can restart it, but you cannot stop or start it until the term ends.
• The disk is billed the same way as on an hourly VM.
• You can still delete the VM during the term, but its upfront payment is not refunded. See Billing options for TIR Virtual Machines.

Choose a term and a renewal policy

1. Choose Convert to Committed, from the VM’s Actions menu in Manage VMs or from More Actions on its page.
2. Under Committed Plan, choose the term. Each term is a number of days, and its price is the whole term paid upfront.
3. Under Renewal Policy, choose what happens when the term ends. You must choose one yourself.
   • Auto Renewal buys the same plan again if your credits cover it, and otherwise switches to hourly billing and emails the owner.
   • Convert to Hourly Plan keeps the VM running and bills it by the minute at the hourly rate.
   • Auto Delete deletes the VM and its disk, so choose it only for work with a fixed end date, and copy out anything you need first.
4. Check the end date. Tick the box that accepts that the full amount is charged upfront and that no refund is given for the remaining days.
5. Select Continue.

The VM keeps running the whole time, and it is billed as committed from then on.

See the term on the VM

The VM is now marked Committed in Manage VMs. Under Overview > Plan Details on its details page, Committed Upto is the date the term ends, and Renewal Preference is the policy you chose.

Before the term ends, TIR emails the VM’s creator and the account’s primary contact as a reminder.

To change what happens at the end of the term, see Change the plan of a VM. If Convert to Committed is unavailable, see Troubleshooting TIR Virtual Machines.