It is crucial to increase EC2 boot speed for certain workloads at Depot. While it may seem like the boot time is fixed, it can actually be optimized to speed up the process significantly. For example, starting the instance once to preload data blocks can reduce boot time from 40 seconds to 5 seconds. Another strategy involves using Autoscaling warm pools to improve launch performance. Additionally, resizing the instance type of a prewarmed and stopped instance can further optimize boot time. By implementing these methods, Depot managed to reduce boot time for GitHub Actions runner instances from over 40 seconds to under 5 seconds.
https://depot.dev/blog/faster-ec2-boot-time