Feature Guide: New Instance Types

1.7 GB memory, 32-bit platform
1 EC2 Compute Unit (1 virtual core with 1 EC2 Compute Unit)
160 GB instance storage (150 GB plus 10 GB root partition)
Instance Type name: m1.small (used in EC2 APIs)
Price: $0.10 per instance hour

7.5 GB memory, 64-bit platform
4 EC2 Compute Units (2 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
850 GB instance storage (2 x 420 GB plus 10 GB root partition)
Instance Type name: m1.large (used in EC2 APIs)
Price: $0.40 per instance hour

15 GB memory, 64-bit platform
8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
1,690 GB instance storage (4 x 420 GB plus 10 GB root partition)
Instance Type name: m1.xlarge (used in EC2 APIs)
Price: $0.80 per instance hour

(1) The small instance type is equivalent to the original Amazon EC2 instance type that has been available since Amazon EC2 launched. This instance type is the default for all customers. To use other instance types, customers must specifically request them via the RunInstances API.

Note: We use several internal benchmarks and tests to manage the consistency and predictability of the performance of an Amazon EC2 Compute Unit. For more information, go to https://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=370375011.

Before you begin, make sure you are using the right versions of our WSDL, API Tools, and API:

• WSDL and API version: 2007-08-29 or later
• API Tools: 1.2-13740 or later

Note: You can check version information using the ec2ver command.

The large and extra large instances are 64-bit which require 64-bit AMIs. We provide a public 64-bit AMI that you can find by searching for public AMIs owned by Amazon with “x86_64” in the manifest path.

This example shows how to use the ec2dim command and grep to locate the 64-bit public AMI:       

ec2dim -o amazon | grep  x86_64
IMAGE      ec2-public-images/fedora-core6-base-x86_64.manifest.xml 
amazon    available   public 

The original instance type (now called the small instance or m1.small), no change is required. It is a 32-bit instance; you can launch your previous 32-bit AMIs without changes.

To specify the instance type during launch, use the –instance-type command line option of the ec2-run-instances command.

This example starts an extra large instance:

ec2run  --instance-type m1.xlarge -k 

This example starts a large instance:

ec2run  --instance-type m1.large -k 

You can launch the original instance type (now called the small instance or m1.small) as before. Simply specify “—instance-type m1.small”, or leave it out and the small instance will launch by default.

This example starts a small instance:

ec2run  --instance-type m1.small -k 

or

ec2run  -k 

The DescribeInstances response includes an additional instance level element named instanceType which displays the type of instance that is running (i.e., m1.small, m1.large, or m1.xlarge).
The following is an example of output from the DescribeInstances response:

$ ec2din
RESERVATION     r-5824c031      416161254515    default
INSTANCE        i-edb05684      ami-b98d68d0    ec2-72-44-47-95.z-3.compute-1.amazonaws.com      domU-12-31-35-00-3C-81.z-2.compute-1.internal   running    0   m1.xlarge   2007-07-13T15:13:36+0000
RESERVATION     r-46de3a2f      416161254515    default
INSTANCE        i-85af49ec      ami-2bb65342    ec2-72-44-56-99.z-3.compute-1.amazonaws.com      domU-12-31-36-00-34-C3.z-1.compute-1.internal   running    0   m1.small   2007-08-10T16:00:09+0000

The RunInstances and DescribeInstances (ec2run and ec2din, respectively) now return the timestamp at which the instance launched. The timestamp is different from uptime as it will remain constant even if an instance is rebooted. For example:

$ ec2run ami-b98d68d0 --instance-type m1.xlarge
RESERVATION      r-6b42a302      416161254515    default
INSTANCE         i-e548a58c      ami-b98d68d0    pending         0               m1.xlarge  2007-08-17T13:09:28+0000
$ ec2din
RESERVATION      r-6b42a302      416161254515    default
INSTANCE         i-e548a58c      ami-b98d68d0     ec2-72-44-47-95.z-3.compute-1.amazonaws.com     domU-12-31-35-00-3C-81.z-2.compute-1.internal   running    0   m1.xlarge  2007-07-13T15:13:36+0000

Instance storage on the small instance is identical to the original instance.

Instance storage on the new instance types is exposed as follows:

• /dev/sdb (/mnt on large and extra large instance types)
• /dev/sdc (on large and extra large instance types, not mounted)
• /dev/sdd (on extra large instance types, not mounted)
• /dev/sde (on extra large instance types, not mounted)

Instance storage is subject to the same constraints as the ephemeral store of the original instance. The disk contents will survive a reboot of the instance (or the host machine), but will be lost when the instance is terminated.

Note: /dev/sda2 is no longer exposed to the instance. Additionally, the openssh keypair is no longer written to any of the auxiliary storage devices (it is available through the instance meta-data URL).

For more information, see the "Disk Performance Optimization" section of the Amazon EC2 Developer Guide.

The instance type is exposed as part of the instance meta-data. It can be queried from within an instance as follows:

GET https://169.254.169.254/2007-08-29/meta-data/instance-type
m1.xlarge

To bundle instances, please use our new AMI Tools. These tools can bundle any of the three available instance types.

Previous versions of the tool chose a fixed fstab file. The new tools pick the appropriate fstab file for the instance type or allow you to override the file. The new tools can bundle 64-bit or 32-bit AMIs.

Please review the Technical FAQs section of the Amazon EC2 Developer Guide, especially the FAQs in the “Instance Types and Architecture” section.