We’ve come a long way since the launch of the m1.small instance in 2006, adding instances with additional memory, compute power, and your choice of Intel, AMD, or Graviton processors. The original general-purpose “one size fits all” instance has evolved into six families, each one optimized for specific uses cases, with over 600 generally available instances in all.
New M7g and R7g
Today I am happy to tell you about the newest Amazon EC2 instance types, the M7g and the R7g. Both types are powered by the latest generation AWS Graviton3 processors, and are designed to deliver up to 25% better performance than the equivalent sixth-generation (M6g and R6g) instances, making them the best performers in EC2.
The M7g instances are for general purpose workloads such as application servers, microservices, gaming servers, mid-sized data stores, and caching fleets. The R7g instances are a great fit for memory-intensive workloads such as open-source databases, in-memory caches, and real-time big data analytics.
Here are the specs for the M7g instances:
| Instance Name | vCPUs |
Memory |
Network Bandwidth |
EBS Bandwidth |
| m7g.medium | 1 | 4 GiB | up to 12.5 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| m7g.large | 2 | 8 GiB | up to 12.5 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| m7g.xlarge | 4 | 16 GiB | up to 12.5 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| m7g.2xlarge | 8 | 32 GiB | up to 15 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| m7g.4xlarge | 16 | 64 GiB | up to 15 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| m7g.8xlarge | 32 | 128 GiB | 15 Gbps | 10 Gbps |
| m7g.12xlarge | 48 | 192 GiB | 22.5 Gbps | 15 Gbps |
| m7g.16xlarge | 64 | 256 GiB | 30 Gbps | 20 Gbps |
| m7g.metal | 64 | 256 GiB | 30 Gbps | 20 Gbps |
And here are the specs for the R7g instances:
| Instance Name | vCPUs |
Memory |
Network Bandwidth |
EBS Bandwidth |
| r7g.medium | 1 | 8 GiB | up to 12.5 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| r7g.large | 2 | 16 GiB | up to 12.5 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| r7g.xlarge | 4 | 32 GiB | up to 12.5 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| r7g.2xlarge | 8 | 64 GiB | up to 15 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| r7g.4xlarge | 16 | 128 GiB | up to 15 Gbps | up to 10 Gbps |
| r7g.8xlarge | 32 | 256 GiB | 15 Gbps | 10 Gbps |
| r7g.12xlarge | 48 | 384 GiB | 22.5 Gbps | 15 Gbps |
| r7g.16xlarge | 64 | 512 GiB | 30 Gbps | 20 Gbps |
| r7g.metal | 64 | 512 GiB | 30 Gbps | 20 Gbps |
Both types of instances are equipped with DDR5 memory, which provides up to 50% higher memory bandwidth than the DDR4 memory used in previous generations. Here’s an infographic that I created to highlight the principal performance and capacity improvements that we have made available with the new instances:
If you are not yet running your application on Graviton instances, be sure to take advantage of the AWS Graviton Ready Program. The partners in this program provide services and solutions that will help you to migrate your application and to take full advantage of all that the Graviton instances have to offer. Other helpful resources include the Porting Advisor for Graviton and the Graviton Fast Start program.
The instances are built on the AWS Nitro System, and benefit from multiple features that enhance security: always-on memory encryption, a dedicated cache for each vCPU, and support for pointer authentication. They also support encrypted EBS volumes, which protect data at rest on the volume, data moving between the instance and the volume, snapshots created from the volume, and volumes created from those snapshots. To learn more about these and other Nitro-powered security features, be sure to read The Security Design of the AWS Nitro System.
On the network side the instances are EBS-Optimized with dedicated networking between the instances and the EBS volumes, and also support Enhanced Networking (read How do I enable and configure enhanced networking on my EC2 instances? for more info). The 16xlarge and metal instances also support Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for applications that need a high level of inter-node communication.
Pricing and Regions
M7g and R7g instances are available today in the US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) AWS Regions in On-Demand, Spot, Reserved Instance, and Savings Plan form.
— Jeff;
PS – Launch one today and let me know what you think!
