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

Published: 2019-10-10 | Originally published at AWS Blog

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:

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:

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 ;

About the Author

Julien is the Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Evangelist for EMEA . He focuses on helping developers and enterprises bring their ideas to life. In his spare time, he reads the works of JRR Tolkien again and again.