Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation
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Updated 2025-02-13

Stopping and Starting the Instances in an Instance Pool

You can stop and start all the instances in an instance pool as needed to update software or resolve error conditions.

To automatically stop and start instances in an instance pool based on a schedule, you can enable autoscaling for the pool.

Tip

To stop all instances in an instance pool, stop the pool itself, rather than the individual instances. If you stop all of the instances in a pool without stopping the pool, the pool tries to relaunch the instances.

Shutting Down or Restarting an Instance Using the Instance's OS

You can shut down and restart instances using the commands available in the operating system when you are logged in to the instance. Shutting down an instance using the instance's OS does not stop billing for that instance. If you shut down the instances in an instance pool this way, be sure to also stop the instance pool from the Console or API.

Required IAM Policy

To use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, an administrator must be a member of a group granted security access in a policy  by a tenancy administrator. This access is required whether you're using the Console or the REST API with an SDK, CLI, or other tool. If you get a message that you don't have permission or are unauthorized, verify with the tenancy administrator what type of access you have and which compartment  your access works in.

For administrators: For a typical policy that gives access to instance pools and instance configurations, see Let users manage Compute instance configurations, instance pools, and cluster networks.

If you're new to policies, see Managing Identity Domains and Common Policies. For reference material about writing policies for instances, cloud networks, or other Core Services API resources, see Details for Core Services.

Resource Billing for Stopped Instances

For both VM and bare metal instances, billing depends on the shape that you use to create the instance:

  • Standard shapes: Stopping an instance pool pauses billing. However, stopped instances continue to count toward your service limits.
  • Dense I/O shapes: Billing continues for stopped instance pools because the NVMe storage resources are preserved. Related resources continue to count toward your service limits. To halt billing and remove related resources from your service limits, you must delete the instance pool.
  • GPU shapes: For VM instances that use shapes in the VM.GPU.A10 series, stopping an instance pool pauses billing. However, stopped instances continue to count toward your service limits. For all other GPU shapes, billing continues for stopped instance pools because GPU resources are preserved. Related resources continue to count toward your service limits. To halt billing and remove related resources from your service limits, you must delete the instance pool.
  • HPC shapes: Billing continues for stopped instance pools because the NVMe storage resources are preserved. Related resources continue to count toward your service limits. To halt billing and remove related resources from your service limits, you must delete the instance pool.
  • Optimized shapes: For VM instances, stopping an instance pool pauses billing. However, stopped instances continue to count toward your service limits. For bare metal instances, billing continues for stopped instance pools because the NVMe storage resources are preserved. Related resources continue to count toward your service limits. To halt billing and remove related resources from your service limits, you must delete the instance pool.

Shutting down an instance using the instance's OS does not stop billing for that instance. If you shut down the instances in an instance pool this way, be sure to also stop the instance pool from the Console or API.

For more information about Compute pricing, see Compute Pricing. For more information about how instances running Microsoft Windows Server are billed when they are stopped, see How am I charged for Windows Server on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure?

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Updated 2025-02-13