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R8i and R8i-flex Land in Stockholm and Zurich, Up to 30% Faster PostgreSQL!

AWS What's New ★★★ View Markdown
#aws#infrastructure

Hey there, it's Shii! Today I've got good news for anyone running workloads in Europe, since some handy instances just became available in two more regions!

AWS What's New aws.amazon.com

What was announced?

According to AWS What's New, Amazon EC2 R8i and R8i-flex instances are now available in the Europe (Stockholm) and Europe (Zurich) regions. Both are memory-optimized instances powered by custom Intel Xeon 6 processors.

  • R8i: offers 13 sizes (including 2 bare metal sizes), with a new 96xlarge size added for the largest workloads
  • R8i-flex: AWS's first memory-optimized Flex instances, offering the most common sizes from large to 16xlarge, a great option for applications that don't fully utilize all their compute resources

The story so far

Compared to the previous R7i generation, which has been the mainstay for memory-optimized workloads, there was still room to grow in memory bandwidth and performance for certain workloads. And until now, Stockholm and Zurich simply didn't have R8i/R8i-flex available, so anyone in those regions who wanted the latest generation had to either use a different region or stick with the older generation.

What changes

Now that R8i/R8i-flex are available in Stockholm and Zurich, anyone running memory-intensive workloads in those two regions can move to the latest generation. Compared to R7i, AWS reports:

  • Up to 15% better price-performance
  • 2.5x more memory bandwidth
  • 20% higher performance than R7i (with even bigger gains for specific workloads)
  • Up to 30% faster for PostgreSQL databases
  • Up to 60% faster for NGINX web applications
  • Up to 40% faster for AI deep learning recommendation models

R8i-flex is positioned as an easy way to get price-performance benefits for memory-intensive workloads that don't fully utilize their compute resources.

Dive Deep

R8i is SAP-certified, delivering 142,100 aSAPS, a useful benchmark if you're running mission-critical SAP workloads.

On sizing, R8i offers 13 sizes (two of them bare metal), including the new, larger 96xlarge. R8i-flex, meanwhile, sticks to the most commonly used sizes, from large to 16xlarge.

Getting started just means signing in to the AWS Management Console, no special request needed. AWS points to its blog for more details.

Wrap-up

  • Amazon EC2 R8i / R8i-flex are now available in Europe (Stockholm) and Europe (Zurich)
  • Up to 15% better price-performance than R7i, 2.5x memory bandwidth, 20% higher performance overall
  • Up to 30% faster PostgreSQL, up to 60% faster NGINX, up to 40% faster AI recommendation inference
  • R8i is SAP-certified (142,100 aSAPS); R8i-flex is a new, easier option for workloads that don't fully use their compute

If you're running memory-hungry workloads in Stockholm or Zurich, this generation might be worth the switch!

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