INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
AWS is adding a new kind of virtual machine to its growing list of EC2 options
These new machines feature local NVMe storage, which offers significantly faster throughput than standard SSDs.
These new so-called C5d
instances join the existing lineup of compute-optimized C5 instances the service already offered
AWS cites high-performance computing workloads, real-time analytics, multiplayer gaming and video encoding as potential use cases for its
regular C5machines and with the addition of this faster storage option, chances are users who switch will see even better performance.
Since
the local storage is attached to the machine, it&ll also be terminated when the instance is stopped, so this is meant for storing
intermediate files, not long-term storage.
Both C5 and C5d instances share the same underlying platform, with 3.0 GHz Intel Xeon Platinum
8000 processors.
The new instances are now available in a number of AWS U.S
regions, as well as in the service Canada regions
Prices are, unsurprisingly a bit higher than for regular C5 machines, starting at $0.096 per hour for the most basic machine with 4 in AWS
Oregon region, for example
Regular C5 machines start at $0.085 per hour.
It worth noting that the EC2 F1 instances, which offer access to FPGAs, also use NVMe storage
Those are highly specialized machines, though, while the C5 instances are interesting to a far wider audience of developers.
On top of the
NVMe announcement, AWS today also noted that its EC2 Bare Metal Instances are now generally available
These machines provide direct access to all the features of the underlying hardware, making them ideal for running applications that simply
can&t run on virtualized hardware and for runningsecured container clusters
These bare metal instances also offer support for NVMe storage.
