Posted On: Jun 19, 2023
ENA Express now supports 10 new instances: C6a.48xlarge, C6a.metal, M6a.48xlarge, M6a.metal, R6a.48xlarge, R6a.metal, x2idn.32xlarge, x2idn.metal, x2iedn.32xlarge, and x2iedn.metal. ENA Express is a networking feature that uses the AWS Scalable Reliable Datagram (SRD) protocol to improve network performance in two key ways: higher single flow bandwidth and lower tail latency for network traffic between EC2 instances. SRD is a proprietary protocol that delivers these improvements through advanced congestion control, multi-pathing, and packet reordering directly from the Nitro card.
ENA Express can be used for many applications on EC2, but is best suited for applications such as file systems, distributed databases, and media encoding. ENA Express increases the maximum single flow bandwidth of EC2 instances up to 25 Gbps. Compared to TCP over ENA, ENA Express reduces p99 network latency by up to 50%, and p99.9 latency by up to 85%. ENA Express works transparently to your applications with TCP and UDP protocols. Enabling ENA Express is as easy as a single command or console toggle for your EC2 instances’ network configuration. ENA Express detects compatibility between your EC2 instances and establishes an SRD connection when both communicating instances have ENA Express enabled. Once a connection is established, your traffic takes advantage of SRD and its performance benefits.
ENA Express is available in all AWS Commercial Regions. ENA Express comes at no additional cost. To learn more and get started, please review the latest EC2 Documentation.