Instances built on the AWS Nitro System
The Nitro System is a collection of hardware and software components built by AWS
that enable high performance, high availability, and high security. For more
information, see AWS Nitro System
The Nitro System provides bare metal capabilities that eliminate virtualization overhead and support workloads that require full access to host hardware. Bare metal instances are well suited for the following:
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Workloads that require access to low-level hardware features (for example, Intel VT) that are not available or fully supported in virtualized environments
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Applications that require a non-virtualized environment for licensing or support
Nitro components
The following components are part of the Nitro System:
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Nitro card
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Local NVMe storage volumes
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Networking hardware support
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Management
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Monitoring
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Security
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Nitro security chip, integrated into the motherboard
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Nitro hypervisor - A lightweight hypervisor that manages memory and CPU allocation and delivers performance that is indistinguishable from bare metal for most workloads.
Virtualized instances
The following virtualized instances are built on the Nitro System:
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General purpose: M5 | M5a | M5ad | M5d | M5dn | M5n | M5zn | M6a | M6g | M6gd | M6i | M6id | M6idn | M6in | M7a | M7g | M7gd | M7i | M7i-flex | T3 | T3a | T4g
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Compute optimized: C5 | C5a | C5ad | C5d | C5n | C6a | C6g | C6gd | C6gn | C6i | C6id | C6in | C7a | C7g | C7gd | C7gn | C7i | C7i-flex
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Memory optimized: R5 | R5a | R5ad | R5b | R5d | R5dn | R5n | R6a | R6g | R6gd | R6i | R6idn | R6in | R6id | R7a | R7g | R7gd | R7i | R7iz | U-3tb1 | U-6tb1 | U-9tb1 | U-12tb1 | U-18tb1 | U-24tb1 | U7i-12tb | U7in-16tb | U7in-24tb | U7in-32tb | X2gd | X2idn | X2iedn | X2iezn | z1d
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Storage optimized: D3 | D3en | I3en | I4g | I4i | Im4gn | Is4gen
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Accelerated computing: DL1 | DL2q | G4ad | G4dn | G5 | G5g | G6 | Gr6 | Inf1 | Inf2 | P3dn | P4d | P4de | P5 | Trn1 | Trn1n | VT1
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High-performance computing: Hpc6a | Hpc6id | Hpc7a | Hpc7g
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Previous generation: A1
Bare metal instances
The following bare metal instances are built on the Nitro System:
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General purpose:
m5.metal
|m5d.metal
|m5dn.metal
|m5n.metal
|m5zn.metal
|m6a.metal
|m6g.metal
|m6gd.metal
|m6i.metal
|m6id.metal
|m6idn.metal
|m6in.metal
|m7a.metal-48xl
|m7g.metal
|m7gd.metal
|m7i.metal-24xl
|m7i.metal-48xl
|mac1.metal
|mac2.metal
|mac2-m1ultra.metal
|mac2-m2.metal
|mac2-m2pro.metal
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Compute optimized:
c5.metal
|c5d.metal
|c5n.metal
|c6a.metal
|c6g.metal
|c6gd.metal
|c6i.metal
|c6id.metal
|c6in.metal
|c7a.metal-48xl
|c7g.metal
|c7gd.metal
|c7gn.metal
|c7i.metal-24xl
|c7i.metal-48xl
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Memory optimized:
r5.metal
|r5b.metal
|r5d.metal
|r5dn.metal
|r5n.metal
|r6a.metal
|r6g.metal
|r6gd.metal
|r6i.metal
|r6idn.metal
|r6in.metal
|r6id.metal
|r7a.metal-48xl
|r7g.metal
|r7gd.metal
|r7i.metal-24xl
|r7i.metal-48xl
|r7iz.metal-16xl
|r7iz.metal-32xl
|u-6tb1.metal
|u-9tb1.metal
|u-12tb1.metal
|u-18tb1.metal
|u-24tb1.metal
|x2gd.metal
|x2idn.metal
|x2iedn.metal
|x2iezn.metal
|z1d.metal
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Storage optimized:
i3.metal
|i3en.metal
|i4i.metal
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Accelerated computing:
g4dn.metal
|g5g.metal
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Previous generation:
a1.metal
Launching a bare metal instance boots the underlying server, which includes verifying all hardware and firmware components. This means that it can take 20 minutes from the time the instance enters the running state until it becomes available over the network.
Requirements
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Instances built on the Nitro System have the following driver requirements:
NVMe drivers must be installed
Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) drivers must be installed
The current AWS Windows AMIs meet these requirements and the following Linux AMIs meet these requirements:
AL2023
Amazon Linux 2
Ubuntu 14.04 or later with the
linux-aws
kernelRed Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 or later
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 or later
CentOS 7.4.1708 or later
FreeBSD 11.1 or later
Debian GNU/Linux 9 or later
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Instances with AWS Graviton processors have the following requirements:
An AMI for the 64-bit Arm architecture
Support for booting through UEFI with ACPI tables and ACPI hot-plug of PCI devices
The following AMIs meet these requirements:
Amazon Linux 2 (64-bit Arm)
Ubuntu 16.04 or later (64-bit Arm) with the
linux-aws
kernelRed Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 or later (64-bit Arm)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 or later (64-bit Arm)
Debian 10 or later (64-bit Arm)