start 100 droplets parallel?

April 18, 2014 3.7k views
I need to process a lot of data on each droplet. Each droplet will use a custom image I have created. I will eventually use API to automate all this. Right now, I'm concerned about how I can turn on all 100 droplets at once and shut them down when I'm not using them (to save money). One droplet takes about 30 seconds to create with my image loaded, and takes about 10 seconds to shut down. Is what I'm trying to achieve possible? Please help.
5 Answers
Probably not. There's usually a limit on the amount of droplets you can create. In order to save money on droplets, you'll need to destroy them luck!
Note, that you can get the limit of droplets that you create increased by contacting support however, it sounds like you are trying to get around paying for the service. I wouldn't expect digital ocean to be willing to work so you can manipulate the pricing.
How am I trying to manipulate pricing? I have a ton of data that needs to be processed in parallel and I am paying hourly for the 100 droplets I need.
Hi JoeJoe,

just keep in mind that when you are spinning up servers for your processing, shutting them down will not save money as you will still be charged for powered off servers. However, if you would like to avoid being charged (and what you have described does seem like a legitimate use case), you would destroy the servers once you're done with them. I would recommend snapshotting all of them if you need specific set up.

You can use the API for what you have described.

Community Director
thank you, I have reached out to support.

so what is the purpose of 'power off'. should I create droplets and destroy them? And then create all of them again based on a custom image?

This would take a good minute of waittime. I guess it's not like Amazon EC2 where I can turn on and off on demand.
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