What do ECUs, the processor core, and memory mean when I run the instance

Question

When I run the instance on EC2, it gives me the option for t1.micro, m1.small, m1.large, etc. There is a table of comparisons of vCPU, ECU, processor cores, memory, instance storage. Is this system RAM?

I can’t understand what all these terms refer to, can someone give me a clear picture of what these terms mean?

Answer 1

ECU = EC2. More from here: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/faqs/#What_is_an_EC2_Compute_Unit_and_why_did_you_introduce_it

Amazon EC2 uses many measures to provide each instance with consistent and predictable CPU capacity. To make it easier for developers to compare processor capacity between different types of instances, we have defined the Amazon EC2 calculation module. The amount of CPU that is allocated to a particular instance is expressed in terms of these EC2 computing units. We use several tests and tests to control the consistency and predictability of performance from the EC2 Compute Unit. One EC2 processing unit provides equivalent processor power for Opteron 1.0 or 2.0 Xeon 1.0-1.2 GHz processors. This is also equivalent to the early-2006 Xeon processor at 1.7 GHz indicated in our initial documentation. Over time, we can add or replace measures that go into the definition of an EC2 computing unit if we find metrics that will give you a clearer picture of computing power.

Answer 2

Answering a question from the Forum for completeness. Amazon stopped using ECU - Elastic Compute Units and switched to vCPU method. Therefore, ignoring the ECU, you can pretty much start comparing the sizes of EC2 instances like CPU (Clock Speed), number of processors, RAM, storage, etc.

Each instance instance instance family configuration is published as the number of vCPUs and what is a physical processor. Details and screenshot kept here http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/#instance-type-matrix

Answer 3

For linux, I realized that ECU can be measured by sysbench:

sysbench --num-threads=128 --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=50000 --max-requests=50000 run

The total time (t) should be calculated by the formula:

ECU=1925/t

And my examples of test results:

 | instance type | time | ECU | |-------------------|----------|---------| | m1.small | 1735,62 | 1 | | m3.xlarge | 147,62 | 13 | | m3.2xlarge | 74,61 | 26 | | r3.large | 295,84 | 7 | | r3.xlarge | 148,18 | 13 | | m4.xlarge | 146,71 | 13 | | m4.2xlarge | 73,69 | 26 | | c4.xlarge | 123,59 | 16 | | c4.2xlarge | 61,91 | 31 | | c4.4xlarge | 31,14 | 62 | 

Answer 4

ECUs (EC2 Computer Units) are an approximate measure of the performance of a processor that Amazon introduced to compare their EC2 instances ("servers").

Processor performance, of course, is a multidimensional measure, so placing one number on it (for example, "5 ECUs") can be approximate. If you want to know more precisely how well the processor performs the task that you have in mind, you should choose a test that is similar to your task.

At the beginning of 2014, there was a good comparative site comparing cloud hosting offers for dozens of different tests with CloudHarmony tests . However, now this seems to be lost (and archive.org cannot help, as it was a web application). Only an introductory blog post is available .

Also useful: ec2instances.info , which at least aggregates ECU information from different EC2 instances for comparison. (Add the column "Computing Units (ECU)" to make it work.)