Microsecond-accurate time arrives on 135 more EC2 instance types!
Hi, it's Shii-chan! Here's good news for anyone who cares about precise time.
AWS What's New
aws.amazon.com
What was announced?
AWS What's New says Amazon Time Sync Service now supports microsecond-accurate time on 135 additional EC2 instance types, spanning 12 instance families, in all commercial Regions.
Why it matters
The feature uses the reference clocks running in the AWS Nitro System directly, providing microsecond-accurate time and nanosecond-precision hardware timestamps. It makes these easy:
- Ordering application events
- Measuring one-way network latency
- Increasing distributed application transaction speed
What changes
Newer instance generations can now use microsecond-accurate time too.
Dive Deep
The 12 newly supported families:
- Gen8: C8a, C8i, C8i-flex, C8id, M8i, M8i-flex, R8a, X8i
- Gen9: C9g, C9gd, M9g, M9gd
To use it, create a Precision Time Placement Group (PTPG), a new placement strategy that launches instances with the Precision Time Protocol hardware clock (PHC) enabled.
If you need both low network latency and precise time, associate a PTPG with a Cluster Placement Group (CPG) so your low-latency workloads benefit from precise time too. See the Amazon Time Sync Service documentation for details.
Wrap-up
- Microsecond-accurate time on 135 more instance types across 12 families
- Available in all commercial Regions
- Launch with a PTPG to enable the PHC
- Combine with a CPG for low latency and precise time
Great for distributed systems that depend on accurate time!
