We launched the memory optimized Amazon EC2 R6a instances in July 2022 powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC (Milan) processors, running at frequencies up to 3.6 GHz. Many customers who run workloads that are dependent on x86 instructions, such as SAP, are looking for ways to optimize their cloud utilization. They’re taking advantage of the compute choice that EC2 offers.
Today, we’re announcing the general availability of new memory optimized Amazon EC2 R7a instances powered by 4th Gen AMD EPYC (Genoa) processors with a maximum frequency of 3.7 GHz, which offer up to 50 percent higher performance compared to the previous generation instances. You can use this increased performance to process data faster, consolidate workloads, and lower the cost of ownership.
R7a instances also support AVX-512, Vector Neural Network Instructions (VNNI), and brain floating point (bfloat16). These instances feature Double Data Rate 5 (DDR5) memory, which enables high-speed access to data in-memory, and deliver 2.25 times more memory bandwidth compared to R6a instances for lower latency. Moreover, these instances support always-on memory encryption using AMD secure memory encryption (SME).
These instances are SAP-certified and ideal for high performance, memory-intensive workloads, such as SQL and NoSQL databases, distributed web scale in-memory caches, in-memory databases, real-time big data analytics, and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) applications.
R7a instances feature sizes of up to 192 vCPUs with 1536 GiB RAM. Here are the detailed specs:
| Name | vCPUs | Memory (GiB) | Network Bandwidth (Gbps) | EBS Bandwidth (Gbps) |
| r7a.medium | 1 | 8 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| r7a.large | 2 | 16 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| r7a.xlarge | 4 | 32 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| r7a.2xlarge | 8 | 64 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| r7a.4xlarge | 16 | 128 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| r7a.8xlarge | 32 | 256 | 12.5 | 10 |
| r7a.12xlarge | 48 | 384 | 18.75 | 15 |
| r7a.16xlarge | 64 | 512 | 25 | 20 |
| r7a.24xlarge | 96 | 768 | 37.5 | 30 |
| r7a.32xlarge | 128 | 1024 | 50 | 40 |
| r7a.48xlarge | 192 | 1536 | 50 | 40 |
R7a instances have up to 50 Gbps enhanced networking and 40 Gbps EBS bandwidth, which is similar to R6a instances. You have a new medium instance size, which you can use to right-size your workloads more accurately, offering 1 vCPUs, 8 GiB. Additionally, with R7a instances you can attach up to 128 EBS volumes to an instance compared to up to 28 EBS volume attachments with R6a instances. R7a instances support AES-256 compared to AES-128 in R6a instances for enhanced security.
R7a instances are built on the AWS Nitro System and support Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for workloads that benefit from lower network latency and highly scalable inter-node communication, such as high-performance computing and video processing.
Now Available
Amazon EC2 R7a instances are now available in AWS Regions: US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and EU (Ireland). As usual with Amazon EC2, you only pay for what you use. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 pricing page.
To learn more, visit the EC2 R7a instances page, and AWS/AMD partner page. You can send feedback to ec2-amd-customer-feedback@amazon.com, AWS re:Post for EC2, or through your usual AWS Support contacts.
— Channy