Amazon Web Services is providing more payment options for its cloud-based virtual machines, allowing users to lock in a price and pay either entirely upfront, or throughout the life of a one- or three-year contract.

AWS has a variety of ways customers can pay for using its cloud-based virtual machines. The most common is an on-demand pricing model where customers enter credit card information and pay for virtual machines by the hour.

For customers who plan to use the resources for a longer period of time, AWS offers Reserved Instances (RI) that carry a contract of either one or three years. Previously customers had to pay for those RIs up front, but today AWS announced that customers can pay for the RIs throughout the life of the contract.

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