Introducing Amazon EC2 T3 Instances

Posted on: Aug 21, 2018

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is introducing the next generation Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) burstable general-purpose instances, T3. T3 instances offer a balance of compute, memory, and network resources and are designed to provide a baseline level of CPU performance with the ability to burst above the baseline when needed. T3 instances are powered by the AWS Nitro System which includes a lightweight hardware-accelerated hypervisor, delivering practically all of the compute and memory resources of the host hardware to the instances. T3 instances also feature the latest high frequency Intel Xeon Scalable processors which combined with the AWS Nitro System result in up to a 30% better price to performance improvement over T2 instances. These new Xeon Scalable processors feature new AVX-512 instructions that can further accelerate performance. T3 instances also support Enhanced Networking with up to 5 Gbps in network bandwidth using the Amazon Elastic Network Adaptor.

T3 instances offer generational advances in CPU performance that enable a higher overall baseline performance threshold that benefits a broad spectrum of workloads such as micro-services, low-latency interactive applications, small and medium databases, virtual desktops, development, build and stage environments, code repositories, and business-critical applications. This leading price to performance makes T3 instances the primary choice for general-purpose workloads across the AWS customer base.

T3 instances start in Unlimited mode by default giving users the ability to sustain high CPU performance over any desired time frame while keeping cost as low as possible. When the workload is operating below baseline threshold, it earns CPU credits. Each earned CPU credit provides the T3 instance the opportunity to burst with the performance of a full CPU core for one minute. In Unlimited mode, if the instance uses up all of its earned credit balance, the CPU performance will not be throttled. Instead, if the instance needs to run at higher CPU utilization for a prolonged period, it can do so with an additional charge of 5 cents/vCPU-hour. This enables customers to enjoy a low T3 instance hourly price at most times while ensuring that their instances can burst beyond the baseline if required. With T3 instances, customers can have confidence that they will get the performance they need whenever they need it. Customers that want the benefits of T3 instances, but at a fixed monthly cost also have the option to use Standard mode.

Amazon EC2 T3 Instances are available immediately in the US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), and South America (Sao Paulo) AWS Regions. T3 instances come in 7 sizes (T3.nano, T3.micro, T3.small, T3.medium, T3.large, T3.xlarge, and T3.2xlarge) and can be purchased as On-Demand instances, Reserved Instances (1-Yr, 3-Yr, and Convertible), and as Spot instances.

To get started with Amazon EC2 T3 Instances, visit the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or AWS SDKs. To learn more, visit the Amazon EC2 T3 instance page.