Compute on Chen Kai Bloghttps://www.chenk.top/en/tags/compute/Recent content in Compute on Chen Kai BlogHugoenWed, 29 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000Alibaba Cloud Full Stack (2): ECS — Compute That Actually Makes Sensehttps://www.chenk.top/en/aliyun-fullstack/02-ecs-compute/Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000https://www.chenk.top/en/aliyun-fullstack/02-ecs-compute/<p>The first ECS instance I ever launched was wildly over-provisioned. I picked the biggest instance I could find — an <code>ecs.r6.8xlarge</code> with 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB RAM — to run a Flask app that served maybe 20 requests per minute. I burned through credits in a week, panicked, learned how to downsize online, and discovered my app ran perfectly on a 2-vCPU box costing 94% less. Right-sizing matters more than raw power, and understanding the compute layer is the single most useful thing you can learn about any cloud platform.</p>