Introducing New Amazon EC2 R8g Instances with AWS Graviton4 Chips!
Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently announced new Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) R8g instances. These feature fourth-generation AWS Graviton processors called Graviton 4. This article explains the new EC2 instances and Graviton4 chips. It also covers the benefits, technical details, use cases, and how to access the preview.
What are the New Amazon EC2 R8g Instances?
The Amazon EC2 R8g instances are memory-optimized cloud computing instances. They are designed for running large in-memory databases, caches, and big data workloads.
The R8g instances use the latest Graviton4 processors made by AWS. Compared to the previous R7g instances with Graviton3 chips, R8g instances have up to:
- 3x more vCPUs
- 3x more memory
- 30% better compute performance
It allows customers to run larger workloads while improving performance and reducing costs.
Key Features of the AWS Graviton4 Processors
The Graviton4 processor is AWS’s fourth-generation processor chip custom-designed for cloud workloads. Key features include:
- Up to 30% better compute performance than Graviton 3.
- 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth.
- New hardware-enforced encryption for improved security.
- Optimized for memory-intensive database and analytics workloads.
The Graviton4 chip uses 64-bit Arm Neoverse cores based on the Arm v9 architecture. It builds on learnings from previous AWS Graviton 2 versions dating back to 2018.
Benefits of Amazon EC2 R8g Graviton4 Instances
The new R8g instances with Graviton4 chips offer several benefits:
1. Performance
The new R8g instances deliver up to 30% faster computing performance over Graviton3-based instances. This results in lower latency and faster processing for databases, analytics, and other workloads.
2. Cost Savings
By improving price performance, the Graviton4 instances can lower costs versus x86-based instances. As a result, customers pay less per unit of computation.
3. Security
Graviton4 introduces new hardware-enforced encryption and integrity protection for memory and other on-chip data transfers.
4. Nitro System for Efficiency
AWS Graviton4 uses the Nitro technology. Nitro offloads more virtualization functions to hardware and software. It lowers overhead and enables better performance results.
Use Cases for the R8g Graviton4 Instances
The R8g instances are ideal for running:
- Large in-memory databases like Redis, Varnish, and Memcached.
- Real-time analytics platforms like Apache Spark.
- Data lakes and data warehouse workloads.
- CPU-based machine learning inference.
The improved performance and AWS scalability also suit electronic design automation, scientific computing, and other high-performance computing use cases.
Industry Expert Insights on Graviton 4
AWS Vice President David Brown highlighted the capabilities of the new chips:
Silicon underpins every customer workload, making it a critical area of innovation for AWS. By focusing our chip designs on real workloads that matter to customers, we can deliver them the most advanced cloud infrastructure.
Graviton4 marks the fourth generation we’ve delivered in just five years and is the most powerful and energy-efficient chip we have ever built. And with the surge of interest in generative AI, Trainium2 will help customers train their ML models faster, at a lower cost, and with better energy efficiency.
AWS now has over 150 Graviton-powered EC2 instance types globally. Over 2 million Graviton chips have been built. More than 50,000 customers use Graviton instances, including Datadog, DirecTV, Discovery, Formula 1, NextRoll, Nielsen, Pinterest, SAP, Snowflake, Sprinklr, Stripe, and Zendesk.
Trying the Preview of Amazon EC2 R8g with Graviton4
Developers can access the R8g Graviton4 instances via preview to start testing workloads. Some of the ways include:
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Join Waitlist: Sign up to join the EC2 preview waitlist. AWS will contact approved customers with instructions.
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Launch Test Instances: Use the AWS Management Console or APIs to launch R8g test instances in supported regions.
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Run Benchmarks: Test existing or new databases, analytics pipelines, and other workloads. Compare performance versus previous Graviton chips or x86 instances.
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Provide Feedback: Share feedback and benchmark data with the AWS team to help refine the instances before broad availability.
AWS recommends first following best practices, such as testing at a smaller scale. Interested customers should apply early to begin evaluating the preview.
End Note
The new Amazon EC2 R8g instances featuring AWS Graviton4 processors raise the bar for price performance and energy efficiency. They are ideal for running memory-intensive databases, analytics applications, and HPC workloads in the cloud. Interested customers can sign up now for the preview opportunity. For the latest news on AWS processors and how to use them, check out MGT Commerce.
