AWS Amazon EC2 High Memory Instances for Large In-Memory Databases

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company, announced the availability of High Memory instances for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

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Purpose-built to run large in-memory databases, including production deployments of SAP HANA, Amazon EC2 High Memory instances deliver six nine, and 12TB of memory today, with 18 and 24TB instances coming in 2019.

Combining the largest memory sizes available in the cloud with the agility and reliability of AWS, EC2 High Memory instances enable customers to scale their in-memory database deployments and seamlessly integrate them with the rest of AWS, including storage, networking, IoT, analytics, and machine learning services.

As enterprises continue to process more and more real-time data to make faster business decisions, production deployments of in-memory databases continue to expand. In-memory databases process multiple terabytes of data on a single server in real time, requiring predictable memory scaling and low latency connections to the business logic hosted in the cloud for responsive application performance.

Customers making a shift to the cloud want to be able to run their large in-memory databases in the cloud and ultra-close to the rest of the services interacting with their in-memory databases. Some providers have tried to solve this by offering customers a hosted in-memory database on-premises or in a co-located data center.

The problem with this approach is that the extra networking required to connect the environment to the cloud compounds the cost, makes operating more complex, and adds application latency and variability. In contrast, with Amazon EC2’s 6, 9 and 12TB High Memory instances, customers can run their in-memory databases in the cloud in the same Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) as the rest of their enterprise applications, enabling lower latency, operational simplicity, and more predictable performance.

“Amazon EC2 provides the most comprehensive selection of instances by far, giving customers the flexibility to select the right instance for the right workload today and into the future,” said Matt Garman, VP, compute services, AWS. “We have memory-optimized instances today, and they’ve proven quite popular with customers who want to run memory intensive applications, including in-memory databases. With 12TB instances available in AWS, and 24 B instances coming next year, Amazon EC2 High Memory instances give our customers the ability to scale their in-memory database with predictable performance in the same VPC as their other AWS services. Customers can grow their in-memory database and easily connect it to their storage, networking, analytics, IoT, and machine learning services – helping them make faster and better business decisions.“

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“Our fast-paced industry requires data and analytics in real time, and we use SAP HANA database to support us,” said Makoto Hoketsu, CIO, Fast Retailing. “We have been running HANA on Amazon EC2 X1e instances with 4TB memory, and will transition to the new Amazon EC2 High Memory instance with 6TB memory to support growing business demands. These new instances offer performance suitable for our large HANA deployment, while enabling the benefits of cloud, like automated deployments, simple management from the AWS console, and integration with other AWS services. The flexibility of moving from one instance size to another within minutes means that we can scale our business operations without having to overprovision capacity today.“

SAP National Security Services, Inc. (SAP NS2), a US based independent subsidiary of SAP SE, provides innovative computing, analytics, and cloud solutions that accelerate the pace of data fusion, analysis, and action for US regulated industries. The SAP NS2 Secure HANA Cloud offering, powered by AWS, helps customers comply with the necessary requirements, including ITAR, DoD SRG, or FedRAMP, by running SAP applications in a secure cloud infrastructure with comprehensive services and support.

“We are pleased to continue our partnership with AWS to run mission-critical government and other SAP applications using the new Amazon EC2 High Memory instances,” said Mark Testoni, president and CEO, SAP NS2. “Now with 6TB, 9TB, and 12TB HANA per instance available in the AWS cloud, we can enable our customers to further scale their SAP applications, and support new larger customer workloads, all while maintaining our reference architecture, deployment automation, and performance best-practices.“

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“Today, our clients are running a broad spectrum of mission-critical SAP applications on AWS,” said Jack Sepple, head, cloud practice and group technology officer, Accenture operations. “As our clients modernize their business operations to take advantage of the growing amount of real-time data, they are increasingly running their SAP HANA in-memory databases on public cloud architectures to benefit from agility and reduced costs. These new Amazon EC2 High Memory instances offer our global enterprise clients greater capability and performance to run their mission-critical HANA deployments. We are looking forward to working with AWS to offer the best experience to our clients for running their SAP applications.“

The EC2 High Memory instances are certified by SAP for running Business Suite on HANA, the next-generation Business Suite S/4HANA, Data Mart Solutions on HANA, Business Warehouse on HANA, and SAP BW/4HANA in production environments.

EC2 High Memory instances are available as bare metal instances on EC2 Dedicated Hosts, taking advantage of the innovation of the AWS Nitro System, a combination of purpose-built hardware and software components that provide the performance, security, isolation, elasticity, and efficiency of the infrastructure that powers EC2 instances.

These instances are powered by the Xeon Scalable (Skylake) processors optimized for mission-critical enterprise workloads, and are the first ever EC2 instances to be offered on an 8-socket platform. EC2 High Memory instances are available on a three-year reservation in the US East (N. Virginia) and AsiaPac (Tokyo) AWS regions, with availability in US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), and AWS GovCloud (US-West) planned in the coming months.