Amazon Web Services has announced the release of new Micro Instances for EC2 – smaller, cheaper instances for less demanding applications.  Available On-Demand, the pricing for the new Micro Instances start at $0.02 – $0.03 per hour.  The new instances support platforms on Linux and Windows, feature 613MB of memory, and are ideal for web sites and lower throughput applications.  The cost of $0.02 per hour is a drastic difference in price compared to the $0.12 – $2.48 per hour price range of the more powerful On-Demand instance options.

The new Micro Instances will be best suited for tasks that require little throughput but will infrequently experience higher levels of compute cycles.  For this, the Micro Instances will utilize up to 2 ECUs to handle these short burst of more intense computing.

Amazon EC2′s new Micro Instances combine the reliability and security of EC2 with the convenience of On-Demand Instances and make it accessible for smaller, less demanding outfits with smaller budgets.

Click here for more information on Amazon EC2 On-Demand Instances and pricing.