AWS EC2 - Instance Types

General Purpose

• t2
• • burstable performance
  • • credit = 1 vCPU running at 100% for 1 minute
    • • = 1 vCPU running at 50% for 2 minutes
    • example: t2.small
    • • vCPU: 1
      • • CPU: Intel Xeon with Turbo - up to 3.3 GHz
      • Initial CPU credit: 30 (when started)
      • Credits earned per hour: 12 (=1 per 5 minutes)
      • Maximum Balance: 288
      • Base Performance: 20% of the CPU core
    • stop-start
    • • Earned credits are lost
      • Initial balance is reset
    • expiry
    • • initial credits do not expire
      • earned credits expire
    • Metrics
    • • CPU Credit Usage
      • • Calculate: How may are earned per period (e.g. 5 minutes)
        • Compare: How many are used per period
        • Ensure earned > used over longer period
  • Use cases
  • • development environments, build servers, code repositories, low traffic websites, micro services, experiments, beta 
  • Restrictions
  • • EBS-only

• m4
• • 2.4 GHz Intel Xeon v3 (Haswell)
  • EBS-optimized by default
  • Support for enhanced networking
  • Restrictions
  • • EBS-only

• m3
• • High Frequency Intel Xeon (Ivy Bridge) or 2.6 GHz Intel Xeon (Sandy Bridge)
  • SSD-based instance storage (4-160GB)
  • Use cases
  • • small&mid-size db, SAP, SharePoint, cluster computing, enterprise apps, caching fleets, data processing tasks

• Previous Generation
• • t1, m1

Compute Optmized

Cheapest CPU

Use cases

• HPC
• Front-end fleets, batch processing, distributed analytics, science and engineering projects, ad serving, MMO, video encoding

• c4
• • High Frequency Intel Xeon (Haswell)
  • EBS-optimized by default
  • Support for enhanced networking
  • Support for Placement Groups
  • CPU:
  • • 18 cores with two hyperthreads each (36 vCPU)
    • Customized High Frequency Intel Xeon (Haswell)
    • Turbo boost: ability to increase Hz of 2 cores when other 16 are powered down
    • Ability to control
    • • C-state - sleep level when core is idle
      • • Cores in low power require lower energy BUT
        • It takes longer to wake them up
        • • Ability to create thermal headroom for turbo boost
      • P-state - clock frequency
      • Linux only
  • Restrictions
  • • EBS-only

• c3
• • High Frequency Intel Xeon (Ivy Bridge)
  • SSD-based storage (32-640GB)
  • Support for enhanced networking
  • Support for Placement Groups

• Previous Generations
• • c1, cc2.8xlarge, cc1

Memory Optimized

Cheapest RAM

• r3
• • Ivy Bridge
  • RAM 15.5-244GB
  • SSD Storage (32-640GB)
  • Support for Enhanced Networking
  • Use cases
  • • high performance databases, distributed memory caches, in-memory analytics, genome assembly and analysis, large SAP and Microsoft deployments

• Previous generation
• •  m2, cr1   

GPU

• g2
• • High Frequncy Intel Xeon (Sandy Bridge)
  • NVIDA GPU (1536 CUDA cores) + 4GB RAM
  • • 1-4 such processors
    • hardware video encoder
    • • 8 stream 720@30fps
      • low latency frame capture
  • Use cases
  • • 3D application streaming, machine learning, video-encoding and server-side graphics
      

• Previous Generation
• • cg1

Storage High I/O

• i2
• • CPU: Intel Xeon (Ivy Bridge)
  • SSD-based local storage 
  • • Disks: 1x800 - 8x800 GB
    • TRIM
  • Supported:
  • • Enhanced Networking
    • Placement Groups
    • EBS Optimization
  • Use cases
  • • Cassandra, Data warehousing, Hadoop, cluster file system
  • IOPS
  • • Read IOPS: 35,000 (i2.xlarge) - 365,000 (i2.8xlarge)
    • First Write IOPS: 35,000 (i2.xlarge) - 315,000 (i2.8xlarge)

• Previous Generation
• • hi1

Storage High Density

Cheapest HDD 

• d2
• • HDD Storage (6TB - 48 TB)
  • High disk throughput
  • EBS Optimized by default
  • Support for Enhanced Networking

• Previous Generation
• • hs1

Network Performance

• Low Performance: < 1Gbps
• Medium Performance: ~1 Gbps