Posted On: Apr 26, 2022

Starting today, memory-optimized Amazon EC2 R6gd instances with local NVMe-based SSD storage are available in South America (São Paulo). R6gd instances provide up to 40 percent better price-performance and up to 50% more NVMe storage GB/vCPU over comparable x86-based instances for memory-intensive workloads such as open-source databases, in-memory caches, and real time big data analytics. They are ideal for applications that need access to high-speed, low latency storage, as well as for temporary storage of data such as batch and log processing, and for high-speed caches and scratch files. Amazon EC2 R6gd instances are powered by AWS Graviton2 processors that are custom-designed by AWS to enable the best price performance in Amazon EC2.

AWS Graviton processors are custom designed by AWS to enable the best price performance for workloads in Amazon EC2. AWS Graviton2 processors are the second-generation Graviton processors and deliver a major leap in performance and capabilities over first-generation AWS Graviton processors, with 7x performance, 4x the number of compute cores, 2x larger caches, and 5x faster memory. AWS Graviton2 processors feature always-on 256-bit DRAM encryption and 50% faster per core encryption performance compared to the first-generation AWS Graviton processors. R6gd instances are built on the AWS Nitro System, a collection of AWS-designed hardware and software innovations that enable the delivery of efficient, flexible, and secure cloud services with isolated multi-tenancy, private networking, and fast local storage. These instances provide up to 25 Gbps of network bandwidth, and support up to 19 Gbps Elastic Block Store (EBS) bandwidth. R6gd also provides up to 3.8 TB of NVMe-based SSD storage.

AWS Graviton processors are supported by many Linux operating systems including Amazon Linux 2, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE, and Ubuntu. Many popular applications and services for security, monitoring and management, containers, and continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) from AWS and software partners also support AWS Graviton-based instances. The AWS Graviton Ready program provides customers with certified solutions from partner software vendors that can be used on AWS Graviton-based instances.

With this regional expansion, Amazon EC2 R6gd is now available across AWS US East (N. Virginia, Ohio), US West (N. California, Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris), and South America (São Paulo) regions. All instances are available in 8 sizes, with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 48, and 64 vCPUs in addition to the bare metal option. These instances are purchasable On-Demand, as Reserved instances, as Spot instances, or as part of Savings Plans.  

Many customers and partners are realizing significant price performance benefits of AWS Graviton-based instances with minimal effort. AWS services such as Amazon ElastiCache deliver up to 45% better price performance and Amazon RDS (MariaDB, MySQL, and Postgres) deliver up to 52% better price performance benefits through Graviton2-based instances. Amazon MemoryDB for Redis, supported by Graviton2 instances, makes it easy and cost-effective to build applications that require microsecond read and single-digit millisecond write performance with data durability and high availability. Amazon EMR provides up to 30% lower cost and up to 15% improved performance for Spark workloads on Graviton2-based instances. AWS Graviton2-based database instances are now generally available for Amazon Aurora, and provide up to 20% performance improvement and up to 35% price performance improvement versus comparable x86 instances depending on database size. Additionally, customers using Amazon Elasticsearch Service can now use Graviton2 instances, and enjoy up to 38% improvement in indexing throughput, 50% reduction in indexing latency, and 30% improvement in query performance versus comparable x86-based instances. AWS Lambda functions powered by AWS Graviton2 processors deliver up to 34% better price performance versus comparable x86 Lambda functions for a variety of Serverless workloads, such as web and mobile backends, data, and media processing. AWS Fargate for Amazon ECS powered by AWS Graviton2 processors also provides up to 40% improved price performance over comparable x86-based Fargate.

To get started with AWS Graviton-based instances, visit the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), and AWS SDKs. To learn more, visit the AWS Graviton page or the Getting Started Github page.