Amazon Launches Compute-Intensive C4 Instances on EC2

The compute-intensive instances Amazon Web Services (AWS) previewed in November are now generally available. The Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) C4 instances are now available as reserved and on-demand instances, as well as being accessible through the Spot Market.

Amazon has launched the C4 instances in seven of its regions. Based on the Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (Haswell) processor, the base speed for the instance type runs at 2.9 GHz, but according to Jeff Barr, chief evangelist for Amazon Web Services, it can achieve clock speeds of up to 3.5 GHz by using Intel Turbo Boost.

Pricing depends on the region, of course. Barr provided a basic breakdown of pricing in the US East (Northern Virginia) and US West (Oregon) regions. Prices ranged from $0.116 per hour up to $1.856 per hour, depending on vCPU, RAM, network performance and dedicated EBS throughput. He also indicated that the new C4 is also available in Europe (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), US West (Northern California), Asia Pacific (Singapore) and Asia Pacific (Sydney) regions.

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“Like the existing C3 instances, the new C4 instances also provide Enhanced Networking for higher packet per second (PPS) performance, lower network jitter, and lower network latency,” Barr wrote. “You can also run two or more C4 instances within a placement group in order to arrange for low-latency connectivity within the group.”

EBS optimization is enabled by default for all C4 instances launched on EC2. Barr wrote that the feature provides from 500 Mbps to 4,000 Mbps of dedicated throughput to EBS “above and beyond the general purpose network throughput provided to the instance, and is available to you at no extra charge.”

The C4 instances won’t be of interest to all customers, but for those with a need for running compute-intensive applications, C4 could make a significant difference in having the appropriate amount of performance.