New M5n and R5n EC2 Instances, with up to 100 Gbps Networking #AWS

#Amazon

AWS customers build ever-demanding applications on Amazon EC2. To support them the best we can, we listen to their requirements, go to work, and come up with new capabilities. For instance, in 2018, we upgraded the networking capabilities of Amazon EC2 C5 instances, with up to 100 Gbps networking, and significant improvements in packet processing performance. These are made possible by our new virtualization technology, aka the AWS Nitro System, and by the Elastic Fabric Adapter which enables low latency on 100 Gbps networking platforms.

In order to extend these benefits to the widest range of workloads, we’re happy to announce that these same networking capabilities are available today for both Amazon EC2 M5 and R5 instances.

Introducing Amazon EC2 M5n and M5dn instances
Since the very early days of Amazon EC2, the M family has been a popular choice for general-purpose workloads. The new M5(d)n instances uphold this tradition, and are a great fit for databases, High Performance Computing, analytics, and caching fleets that can take advantage of improved network throughput and packet rate performance.

The chart below lists out the new instances and their specs: each M5(d) instance size now has an M5(d)n counterpart, which supports the upgraded networking capabilities discussed above. For example, whereas the regular m5(d).8xlarge instance has a respectable network bandwidth of 10 Gbps, its m5(d)n.8xlarge sibling goes to 25 Gbps. The top of the line m5(d)n.24xlarge instance even hits 100 Gbps.

Here are the specs:

Instance Name	Logical Processors	Memory	Local Storage (m5dn only)	EBS-Optimized Bandwidth	Network Bandwidth
m5n.large m5dn.large	2	8 GiB	1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD	Up to 3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
m5n.xlarge m5dn.xlarge	4	16 GiB	1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD	Up to 3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
m5n.2xlarge m5dn.2xlarge	8	32 GiB	1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD	Up to 3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
m5n.4xlarge m5dn.4xlarge	16	64 GiB	2 x 300 GB NVMe SSD	3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
m5n.8xlarge m5dn.8xlarge	32	128 GiB	2 x 600 GB NVMe SSD	5 Gbps	25 Gbps
m5n.12xlarge m5dn.12xlarge	48	192 GiB	2 x 900 GB NVMe SSD	7 Gbps	50 Gbps
m5n.16xlarge m5dn.16xlarge	64	256 GiB	4 x 600 GB NVMe SSD	10 Gbps	75 Gbps
m5n.24xlarge m5dn.24xlarge	96	384 GiB	4 x 900 GB NVMe SSD	14 Gbps	100 Gbps
m5n.metal m5dn.metal	96	384 GiB	4 x 900 GB NVMe SSD	14 Gbps	100 Gbps

Introducing Amazon EC2 R5n and R5dn instances
The R5 family is ideally suited for memory-hungry workloads, such as high performance databases, distributed web scale in-memory caches, mid-size in-memory databases, real time big data analytics, and other enterprise applications.

The logic here is exactly the same: each R5(d) instance size has an R5(d)n counterpart. Here are the specs:

Instance Name	Logical Processors	Memory	Local Storage (r5dn only)	EBS-Optimized Bandwidth	Network Bandwidth
r5n.large r5dn.large	2	16 GiB	1 x 75 GB NVMe SSD	Up to 3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
r5n.xlarge r5dn.xlarge	4	32 GiB	1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD	Up to 3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
r5n.2xlarge r5dn.2xlarge	8	64 GiB	1 x 300 GB NVMe SSD	Up to 3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
r5n.4xlarge r5dn.4xlarge	16	128 GiB	2 x 300 GB NVMe SSD	3.5 Gbps	Up to 25 Gbps
r5n.8xlarge r5dn.8xlarge	32	256 GiB	2 x 600 GB NVMe SSD	5 Gbps	25 Gbps
r5n.12xlarge r5dn.12xlarge	48	384 GiB	2 x 900 GB NVMe SSD	7 Gbps	50 Gbps
r5n.16xlarge r5dn.16xlarge	64	512 GiB	4 x 600 GB NVMe SSD	10 Gbps	75 Gbps
r5n.24xlarge r5dn.24xlarge	96	768 GiB	4 x 900 GB NVMe SSD	14 Gbps	100 Gbps
r5n.metal r5dn.metal	96	768 GiB	4 x 900 GB NVMe SSD	14 Gbps	100 Gbps

These new M5(d)n and R5(d)n instances are powered by custom second generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors (based on the Cascade Lake architecture) with sustained all-core turbo frequency of 3.1 GHz and maximum single core turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz. Cascade Lake processors enable new Intel Vector Neural Network Instructions (AVX-512 VNNI) which will help speed up typical machine learning operations like convolution, and automatically improve inference performance over a wide range of deep learning workloads.

Now Available!
You can start using the M5(d)n and R5(d)n instances today in the following regions: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Frankfurt), and Asia Pacific (Singapore).

We hope that these new instances will help you tame your network-hungry workloads! Please send us feedback, either on the AWS Forum for Amazon EC2, or through your usual support contacts.

— Julien;