AWS Graviton processors provide decreased costs meanwhile enhancing scalability and performance. But when should you consider them? Get to know about it in this blog!
When Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced its latest Arm based processors, few surroundings though it was the game changer for the community cloud markets. It was the first time Arm architecture will be released for enterprise-grade utility on such a large scale.
iPhones were the only handsets with Arm processors that could run them. Why then would it be adopted for even heavier demands in cloud services?
What Is AWS Graviton?
For users of its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) virtual machine instances, AWS announced a line of server processors called AWS Graviton in 2018 that are based on Arm architecture. The 64-bit Neoverse cores and unique silicon of the first generation AWS Graviton processors were presented.
Web servers, caching fleets, distributed data centers, and containerized microservices are examples of Arm-based applications that can be run on EC2 A1 instances.
They chose to implement an open Arm architecture. That meant avoiding the expense of designing a new processor from start. Instead, they modified an existing Arm architecture to fit the needs of AWS EC2 instances.
When ought one to employ AWS Graviton Processors?
Use AWS Graviton and Graviton2 for web servers, CPU-based machine learning, log processing, video encoding, and electronic design automation.
Keep in mind that to run on the Arm architecture, your programme would need to be re-architected if your current servers are X86-based. You would experience a large drop in price performance as compensation for the trouble, but over time.
· The Graviton Story
In this blog, we will discuss how graviton processors make cloud journey better. Many cloud experts have claimed with facts and evidence that the cloud journey is made much better with the help of graviton processors.
Intel and AMD have led this market of cloud services for a very long time, but now as we can see other organizations like Amazon Web Services (AWS) are also making their way in this market with the help of graviton processors.
One of the biggest news of this year was an announcement made by AWS that it was adding Graviton2-powered Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) instances to its family.
It highlights how AWS made a strong commitment and broadened its compute instances’ portfolio. Indeed there are many benefits offered by graviton processors, but before discussing the benefits, let’s quickly look over what graviton processors are? Then we will discuss how they are benefitting the companies using the cloud and the ones which are migrating to the cloud.
The Graviton Story
It is not a shocking fact that a company like AWS chooses to build its processors as it is already creating much of its hardware. AWS employs the Neoverse microarchitecture of Arm and builds Graviton CPUs. Arm is considered to be one of the most successful and well-known companies for IP. It built its Neoverse platform to deliver high performance per watt for this new generation of cloud.
In 2018, it was AWS that invented the Graviton processors powered EC2 A1 instances. AWS is known to be the first cloud-based company offering instances that are Arm-based. These instances were significant for cost saving as compared to general purpose ones as they scaled out apps like internet servers, containerized microservices, etc.
AWS introduced its game having three types of EC2 instances in 2020. They were all based on the Graviton2 which was quite a lot powerful. These were M6g, C6g, and R6g. For workloads having general-purpose M6g was employed, while for intensive computing tasks C6g, and for jobs demanding memory R6g was employed. As compared to the first generation of Graviton, the Graviton2 processors provide higher performance up to 40%
The Benefits of Graviton Processors for Cloud Computing
Cloud is not as easy and simple as it appears to be. Due to increased advancements in internet devices, AI, and other technologies, an intensive workload has been created on the cloud. This workload requires both better performance, enhanced security along with cost efficiency.
So the question is that why should companies use Graviton processors? Here are 4 benefits that explain its usefulness and effectiveness as compared to the other processors.
1. Best-in-Class Performance for Less
The E2C instances that are powered by Graviton processors offer better overall performance as compared to the E2C instances powered by other processors. They offer more compute cores and a fast memory along with greater performance. They are known to give the best in class performance for less. This benefit offered by the Graviton processors makes them more valuable and demanding because every company wants its instances to work with high performance. All the Graviton processors support EBS bandwidth up to 19 Gbps. AWS is planning to invent more generations of Graviton processors offering better and better performance.
2. Extensive Ecosystem Support
Now it has been around three years since the Graviton processors came into the cloud architecture. And now a wide Arm centric ecosystem has been developed consisting of Ubuntu, Amazon Linux 2, SUSE, and Red Hat. Arm experts and developers are building cloud-based applications by leveraging this ecosystem and they are trying to eliminate the possible errors, excessive time consumption, and many other factors.
The benefit of these Graviton processors is that they offer increased support to the ecosystem with very few operational risks. The instances that are powered by Graviton processors are having lesser chances of operational risks and are much easier to operate.
As we know that Arm has been famous for its inventions. For the past 35 years, Arm has played a leading role in the boom of embeddable devices and smartphones. But this invention of Graviton processors invaded the cloud architecture with its benefits and advantages.
3. Enhanced Security
When it comes to the cloud, security is the main concern for companies and organizations as it is for the sake of their important databases and sensitive information. Instances that are Graviton processors based offer enhanced security as compared to others. AWS has built these processors with keeping the security issue in their mind. Graviton-based processors solve this concern of security to a much higher level. As they are being built AWS Nitro System, they provide increased security, continuous monitoring, and protection to their cloud-based instances. They have Nitro security chip that provides enhanced security and secured encryption to the system. Graviton processors have a range of security features that help in the defense of the system side-channel attacks and secure the data access.
4. Write Code Once. Use It More.
The Graviton processors series offer many benefits and this is also an important benefit of them. They are also responsible for reducing the time for the development of cloud-based apps. The developers of Graviton processors aim to provide their users with maximum satisfaction and higher business value by decreasing the prone error activities. They also reduce the effort needed for building two distinct having similar setups by reusing the business logic built for mobile apps and desktop applications. They use the code more which is written once only.
These were the four benefits offered to the users of Graviton processors. These features make them more valuable and desirable as compared to the other processors in the digital market. As mentioned earlier there are two generations of Graviton processors invented so far. The second generation of graviton processors is known as Gravtion2 processors.
What are Graviton2 processors?
Graviton2 processors are the successful successors of the Graviton processor’s first generation. They were invented in 2020 by AWS. One of the biggest news of that year was an announcement made by AWS that it was adding Graviton2-powered Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) instances to its family.
What’s improved?
There are many improvements in the Graviton2, as compared to the previous version because it increases
- The performance 7 times
- computing cores number 4 times
- the size of caches 2 times
- The speed of memory to 5 times
- overall price-performance by 40%
How Does Graviton2 Compare to Processors from Other Providers?
This comparison is a bit difficult and tricky. It is not so easy to compare the performance of Graviton2 to the other processors of different providers. There are certain features offered by Graviton processors that make them different and unique as compared to the processors provided by others.
Most of the factors depend on your expenditure of money such as the pricing plan, type of instance, and nature of the workload. This is the reason why most, type of instances and nature of workload is used for comparison of Graviton processors with the processors from other providers.
A study was conducted on the comparison of the four instance type that are AMD (c5a), Intel (m5zn), Intel (m5zn), and Graviton2 (c6g). The results of the study revealed that Graviton was having the greatest performance with the utilization of CPU being maxed out
The break-even point of Graviton processors is about 70% which was nearly the same as compared to the other processors. As compared to the instances powered by Intel processors, Graviton processors offer better performance of up to 15 to 25%
But in any case, workload nature and type of instances employed are the relating factors that are considered when migrating to the Graviton processors.
What’s Next for Graviton: Continuous Evolution
When we talk about innovation and creativity in the field of technology we can never forget two names that are AWS and Arm. They both are known for their innovation in the field of technology. That is why it is not shocking that they came up with the invention of Graviton and Graviton2 processors. We can predict one thing for sure they will not stop here and will come up with more inventions in the future that will blow up our minds.
They will continue their innovation and will evolve more things making the cloud journey even better, benefiting the cloud-based apps,and easing the overall use of the cloud by increasing performance and security and lowering the cost.
0sacle is Premier Consulting Partner of AWS along with 11 competencies that include migration to the cloud. 0scale remains on the upfront side of emerging technologies and is known for delivering one of the best cloud solutions to its users.
In the end, we hope that this article has conveyed all the necessary information about the Graviton processor series along with their potential benefits. We compared the Graviton processors with the processors from other providers. We also revealed the secret that how these processors are making clod journey easier and better with improved security and enhanced performance.
