AWS Debuts Amazon EC2 Hpc6a Instances for High-performing Tasks

Highlights

• AWS claimed that its new Hpc6a instances have been designed to eliminate the need for on-premise installations opted by HPC operators to manage high-end needs.
• The Hpc6a deployments are flexible and can be managed through its AWS ParallelCluster and other instances.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the general availability of the new Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Hpc6a instances, a new instance type that is purpose-built for tightly-coupled high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.

Driven by 3^rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, Amazon’s Hpc6a instances expand AWS’s portfolio of HPC compute options and deliver better price-performance than compute-optimized Amazon EC2 instances that customers use for HPC workloads today.

AWS noted that HPC processing could be an expensive proposition because of its inherent requirements for fast data processing and fast memory and storage and low-latency connectivity when working in multi-cluster environments. The company claimed that its new Hpc6a instances have been designed to eliminate the need for on-premise installations opted by HPC operators to manage high-end needs.

Amazon said that the new 3.6 GHz AMD processors can combine with up to 384GB of memory and 100 Gbps of Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) (also available in m6a instances) networking bandwidth to support cost-effective, scalable deployments for HPC clusters at scales of up to “tens of thousands of cores.” The firm believes that the new offering will entice clients who are completing tasks across diverse industry segments, including genomics, computational fluid dynamics, weather forecasting, molecular dynamics, computational chemistry, financial risk modelling, computer-aided engineering, and seismic imaging.

Amazon also mentioned that Hpc6a deployments are flexible and can be managed through its AWS ParallelCluster along with other types of instances. The new solution can also benefit from its Nitro System, a “collection of building blocks that offload many of the traditional virtualization functions to dedicated hardware and software to deliver high performance, high availability, and increased security while also reducing virtualization overhead.”

The new EC2 Hpc6a instances can be purchased as On-Demand or Reserved instances or via AWS’ Savings Plan. AWS Regions supported by the new product include US East (Ohio) and AWS GovCloud (US-West), aiming to launch additional AWD Regions soon.