Machine types are shown in regions where they are not in fact available

[gdubicki]

For example N2Ds are shown in us-west2:

(source: https://gcpinstances.doit-intl.com/?min_memory=30&region=us-west2&cost_duration=monthly)

...while according to the GCP docs N2Ds are not available in this region.

This also applies to C2Ds shown on this screenshot and probably other types on other regions.

[Burekasim]

Hi @gdubicki,

I'm aware of that. In GCPinstances.info, I follow the calculator price list, and according to the calculator, that's the price of the instance, if it was available in that region.

What do you think we should do in this case? remove the instance from the list or add a column/note regarding the availability?

[Cyclenerd]

I think this is a good example that the documentation is not always up to date. I just booted a n2d-highmem-4 machine (with AMD Rome) in us-west2 (Los Angeles).

The machine is currently available only in zone us-west2-b.

I made the experience that everything what gcloud compute machine-types list returns can be started. In the price list are also prices of resources that are not available in the region.

.

[gdubicki]

I'm aware of that. In GCPinstances.info, I follow the calculator price list, and according to the calculator, that's the price of the instance, if it was available in that region.

What do you think we should do in this case? remove the instance from the list or add a column/note regarding the availability?

As @Cyclenerd has shown (thanks!) the availability changes pretty dynamically so I think that the best way to deal with this is to - as you suggest, @Burekasim - add a new column that would show real availability of given instance type.

This seems to be a better approach than adding and removing the given instance type row completely as: a) it's more "backward compatible", in this case: will not break anyone's use flow, b) it's more "right" according to GCP APIs - if they provide a theoretical price, then we should show it. Apparently real availability is a different aspect, so we should treat it as such.

In that new column, probably on some other GCP API that provides such information, I would love to see not only a "yes/no" flag, but a list of zones in which the given instance type is available, as for production purposes we are not considering using types that are available in only one zone because of too low SLA. For optimal UX I would like to have a color applied to the cells in that column with a visual indication of the availability, f.e.: green for 2 or more zones, yellow for exactly 1 zone, red for not available.

(Phew, that's a long wishlist. 😅)

And what do you think we should do, @Burekasim?

[Burekasim]

Hi,

I'm sorry for the late reply,
I'm thinking to myself, maybe it will be better to remove the instance from the list if it's not available in at least 1 availability zone. other solutions might confuse the website visitors.

[gdubicki]

I'm thinking to myself, maybe it will be better to remove the instance from the list if it's not available in at least 1 availability zone. other solutions might confuse the website visitors.

On second thought, I completely agree.