Placement strategies for your placement groups

You can create a placement group for your EC2 instances using one of the following placement strategies.

Cluster placement groups

A cluster placement group is a logical grouping of instances within a single Availability Zone. Instances are not isolated to a single rack. A cluster placement group can span peered virtual private networks (VPCs) in the same Region. Instances in the same cluster placement group enjoy a higher per-flow throughput limit for TCP/IP traffic and are placed in the same high-bisection bandwidth segment of the network.

The following image shows instances that are placed into a cluster placement group.

Cluster placement groups are recommended for applications that benefit from low network latency, high network throughput, or both. They are also recommended when the majority of the network traffic is between the instances in the group. To provide the lowest latency and the highest packet-per-second network performance for your placement group, choose an instance type that supports enhanced networking. For more information, see Enhanced Networking.

We recommend that you launch your instances in the following way:

If you try to add more instances to the placement group later, or if you try to launch more than one instance type in the placement group, you increase your chances of getting an insufficient capacity error.

If you stop an instance in a placement group and then start it again, it still runs in the placement group. However, the start fails if there isn't enough capacity for the instance.

If you receive a capacity error when launching an instance in a placement group that already has running instances, stop and start all of the instances in the placement group, and try the launch again. Starting the instances may migrate them to hardware that has capacity for all of the requested instances.

Partition placement groups

Partition placement groups help reduce the likelihood of correlated hardware failures for your application. When using partition placement groups, Amazon EC2 divides each group into logical segments called partitions. Amazon EC2 ensures that each partition within a placement group has its own set of racks. Each rack has its own network and power source. No two partitions within a placement group share the same racks, allowing you to isolate the impact of hardware failure within your application.

The following image is a simple visual representation of a partition placement group in a single Availability Zone. It shows instances that are placed into a partition placement group with three partitions—Partition 1, Partition 2, and Partition 3. Each partition comprises multiple instances. The instances in a partition do not share racks with the instances in the other partitions, allowing you to contain the impact of a single hardware failure to only the associated partition.

Partition placement groups can be used to deploy large distributed and replicated workloads, such as HDFS, HBase, and Cassandra, across distinct racks. When you launch instances into a partition placement group, Amazon EC2 tries to distribute the instances evenly across the number of partitions that you specify. You can also launch instances into a specific partition to have more control over where the instances are placed.

A partition placement group can have partitions in multiple Availability Zones in the same Region. A partition placement group can have a maximum of seven partitions per Availability Zone. The number of instances that can be launched into a partition placement group is limited only by the limits of your account.

In addition, partition placement groups offer visibility into the partitions — you can see which instances are in which partitions. You can share this information with topology-aware applications, such as HDFS, HBase, and Cassandra. These applications use this information to make intelligent data replication decisions for increasing data availability and durability.

If you start or launch an instance in a partition placement group and there is insufficient unique hardware to fulfill the request, the request fails. Amazon EC2 makes more distinct hardware available over time, so you can try your request again later.

Spread placement groups

A spread placement group is a group of instances that are each placed on distinct hardware.

Spread placement groups are recommended for applications that have a small number of critical instances that should be kept separate from each other. Launching instances in a spread level placement group reduces the risk of simultaneous failures that might occur when instances share the same equipment. Spread level placement groups provide access to distinct hardware, and are therefore suitable for mixing instance types or launching instances over time.

If you start or launch an instance in a spread placement group and there is insufficient unique hardware to fulfill the request, the request fails. Amazon EC2 makes more distinct hardware available over time, so you can try your request again later. Placement groups can spread instances across racks or hosts. Rack level spread placement groups can be used in AWS Regions and on AWS Outposts. Host level spread placement groups can be used with AWS Outposts only.

Rack level spread placement groups

The following image shows seven instances in a single Availability Zone that are placed into a spread placement group. The seven instances are placed on seven different racks, each rack has its own network and power source.

A rack level spread placement group can span multiple Availability Zones in the same Region. In a Region, a rack level spread placement group can have a maximum of seven running instances per Availability Zone per group. With Outposts, a rack level spread placement group can hold as many instances as you have racks in your Outpost deployment.

Host level spread placement groups

Host level spread placement groups are only available with AWS Outposts. A host spread level placement group can hold as many instances as you have hosts in your Outpost deployment. For more information, see Placement groups on AWS Outposts.