Cloud Shutdown

Automatic Shutdown

The Formulize cloud shuts down automatically when not in use. Before each new billing hour, each cloud server checks if it is currently performing a search. If idle, the cloud server shuts itself down to avoid additional charges.

This means that

  • Cloud servers shutdown independently on their own, the Formulize client program does not need to be running for an automatic shutdown
  • Closing the Formulize client program always stops the search, allowing the cloud to shutdown automatically
  • The cloud servers will stay online if you are actively running a search, you can run multiple hour searches, overnight, etc. and cloud servers will continue to perform computations

Optionally, you can choose to shutdown the server early using the Shutdown Now… button in the Cloud tab in Formulize. Formulize will also prompt you to shutdown the cloud if it is running when closing the program.

Shutdown Precautions Used by Formulize

The Formulize cloud takes several precautions to avoid and minimize accidental cloud service charges. These are listed below:

  • Cloud servers shutdown each hour if not in use
  • Cloud servers schedule a forced shutdown 24 hours from their initial boot
  • If the Cloud server program crashes for any reason, the cloud server shutdowns immediately

To be certain you are not charged accidentally, shutdown the servers using the Shutdown Now… button in the Cloud tab in the Formulize client program. Verify that the number of running servers is zero before exiting.

Manual Shutdown

If you are experiencing problems, it may be necessary to shutdown servers manually through the Amazon AWS website. These steps are outlined here:

  • Login to the Amazon AWS Management Console using the Amazon.com account that you registered with
  • Select the *Amazon EC2* tab view at the top of the page
  • On the left side, click the Instances link in the INSTANCES group
  • The center screen will list all servers that are current running, and also servers that were recently shutdown
  • Select each running server in the list
  • Click the Instance Actions button, or right-click, and select "Terminate Instances"
  • Confirm the action
  • Verify that the selected servers are now in the Shutting Down state

For additional details, see the Terminate Your Instances page at Amazon.com.