It is important to understand the difference between the providers and the users in the Engine Cloud system.

 

It is possible to be both a provider and a user at the same time.

 

Renting of a Cloud Engine for a fixed price

The booking fee plus a fixed price per minute has to be paid.

 

If a red symbol is at the beginning of the row the engine cannot be taken away from the current user by outbidding him. den. Bids can still be made, but they will not be accepted until the current gives up the engine or his maximum time runs out. If the board window is open the engine starts to analyse this position automatically!

 

Normally there is a maximum time for renting the engine at the fixed price.

 

 

At the end of this time there is no more protection against being outbid, but if there are no bids you can continue to analyse normally.

 

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All engines with a green symbol can be used for analysis immediately by double clicking on the engine’s name.

 

 

In the dialog window you can see the provider’s settings for the current price, the fixed price and the booking fee.

 

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Renting of a Cloud Engine with an auction

 

In this case you must pay the booking fee and the current rate for one minute. The yellow symbol next to the engine signifies that the engine is being used by another user. If you would like to use this engine for your own analysis you can try to outbid the user. You can offer a higher rate than is being used with the menu Limits – Max Rate.

 

 

If you are outbid the price rises automatically, like it does with Ebay bids. Starting with the next minute the user is charged the higher price. If the other bidder withdraws his bid, for instance by logging out, the price falls slowly back to the old value.

 

If the user’s price is outbid he is given a warning and has to react. If he does not increase his price the engine is unloaded after 20 seconds. The new user then pays the higher price that he has offered. Even if the engine is unloaded fast it can take a few minutes for the price to drop to the old level. This means that if there are auctions for popular engines the prices are automatically higher.

 

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Fees

At the end of the rental period the provider pays a transaktion fee of 2% to the server.

 

If the provider merely unloads the engine, half of the price since the start of processing the last main line is refunded.

 

When you bid against another user you have to pay the price for one minute to the server even if your bid is unsuccessful. This is to prevent people making bids just for fun.