They mean the number of hours it is turned on, regardless of whether it is actually computing anything.
And yes, they kind of expect you to turn things on and off. Think of a science project, where scientists need to do a massive calculation. Rather than buying 10 super servers that they will only need for one day and sit there idle for the rest of the year, they launch EC2 instances, do the computation, and switch them of.
It makes sense in that way, but not in a web hosting situation that has a 24/7 requirement, I agree.
They mean the number of hours it is turned on, regardless of whether it is actually computing anything.
And yes, they kind of expect you to turn things on and off. Think of a science project, where scientists need to do a massive calculation. Rather than buying 10 super servers that they will only need for one day and sit there idle for the rest of the year, they launch EC2 instances, do the computation, and switch them of.
It makes sense in that way, but not in a web hosting situation that has a 24/7 requirement, I agree.