AWS Announces G3 Instances for Amazon EC2

Monday 17 July 2017

Dubai - MENA Herald: Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced the availability of G3 instances, the next generation of GPU-powered Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances designed to make it easy to procure a powerful combination of central processing (CPU) and random-access memory (RAM) for workloads such as 3D rendering, 3D visualizations, graphics-intensive remote workstations, video encoding, and virtual reality applications. Backed by NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs, G3 instances offer double the CPU power per GPU, and double the host memory per GPU, than the most powerful GPU cloud instance available today.

Customers running complex modeling and 3D visualization analyses, such as medical image processing, computer-aided design, and seismic visualization jobs, require significant CPU processing power and memory. To offer the best performance for these graphics-intensive applications, the largest G3 instance offers twice the CPU power and eight times the host memory of the previous generation graphics instance (G2). The g3.16xlarge features four NVIDIA Tesla M60 GPUs with 64 CPUs using the latest custom Intel Xeon E5-2686v4 (Broadwell) processors, 488 GB of RAM, and Enhanced Networking using the Amazon EC2 Elastic Network Adaptor. The G3 instance also features two Amazon EC2 “firsts” to speed video frame processing and improve image fidelity for graphics workloads: support for NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation capabilities, including the ability to support four monitors with resolutions of up to 4K (4096 x 2160), and hardware encoding to support up to 10 H.265 (HEVC) 1080p30 streams per GPU.

“AWS was the first to offer cloud instances customized for graphics-intensive applications. In 2010, we launched the CG1 instance type to provide a cost-effective, high-performance instance for graphics-heavy applications, and today, G3, our third generation GPU-powered instance, serves the most demanding graphics workloads such as 3D rendering and data visualization,” said Matt Garman, Vice President, Amazon EC2. “Today, AWS provides the broadest range of cloud instance types to support a wide variety of workloads. Customers have told us that having the ability to choose the right instance for the right workload enables them to operate more efficiently and go to market faster, which is why we continue to innovate to better support any workload.”

BeBop Technology delivers specialized cloud-based services used by the world’s leading media companies and movie studios. “At BeBop, we help customers migrate to a cloud-based environment and integrate the cloud into their existing editorial and post-production workflows,” said David Benson, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of BeBop Technology. “The advanced graphics features of Amazon EC2 G3 instances help our customers edit their work with the same quality and fidelity they would expect from a local workstation, and deliver results faster and much more cost effectively than previously possible.”

Landmark, a Halliburton business line, is the leading technology solutions provider of data and analytics, science, software, and services for the exploration and production industry. “Landmark’s DecisionSpace 365, the industry’s first end-to-end E&P SaaS solution, is empowering oil and gas companies to make the shift to cloud where they’re experiencing breakthroughs in efficiency across the E&P lifecycle,” said Chandra Yeleshwarapu, Global Head of Services and Cloud at Landmark. “The E&P Cloud is increasingly complex with very large datasets, 3D, dynamic algorithms, security, and global reach. The large memory and powerful GPUs within Amazon EC2 G3 instances enable Landmark to deliver value to our clients in ways that were not possible before.”

ZeroLight is a leading omnichannel visualization platform for the automotive industry. “Our real-time 3D car configurators allow new and returning customers to visualize every part of their vehicle to an extremely high standard, allowing them to make more informed purchase decisions,” said Darren Jobling, Chief Executive Officer of ZeroLight. “Amazon EC2 G3 instances will enable us to continue to deliver our unique, real-time, high-quality 3D experiences for automotive customers through every channel. With the increased rendering performance of G3, we will be able to build upon ZeroLight’s current cloud solution, adding new features to our online experiences that deliver higher basket value potential.”

Customers can launch G3 instances using the AWS Management Console, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), AWS SDKs, and third-party libraries. G3 instances are available in three instance sizes: g3.4xlarge, g3.8xlarge, and g3.16xlarge. G3 instances are available in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), US West (N. California), AWS GovCloud (US), and EU (Ireland), and will expand to additional Regions in the coming months.

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