Instances built on the Amazon Nitro System - Amazon EC2
Nitro componentsVirtualized instancesBare metal instancesRequirements
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Instances built on the Amazon Nitro System

The Nitro System is a collection of hardware and software components built by Amazon that enable high performance, high availability, and high security..

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:

  • Workloads that require access to low-level hardware features (for example, Intel VT) that are not available or fully supported in virtualized environments

  • Applications that require a non-virtualized environment for licensing or support

Nitro components

The following components are part of the Nitro System:

  • Nitro card

    • Local NVMe storage volumes

    • Networking hardware support

    • Management

    • Monitoring

    • Security

  • Nitro security chip, integrated into the motherboard

  • 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:

  • 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

  • Compute optimized: C5 | C5a | C5ad | C5d | C5n | C6a | C6g | C6gd | C6gn | C6i | C6id | C6in | C7a | C7g | C7gd | C7gn | C7i

  • 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 | X2gd | X2idn | X2iedn | X2iezn | z1d

  • Storage optimized: D3 | D3en | I3en | I4g | I4i | Im4gn | Is4gen

  • Accelerated computing: DL1 | DL2q | G4ad | G4dn | G5 | G5g | G6 | Gr6 | Inf1 | Inf2 | P3dn | P4d | P4de | P5 | Trn1 | Trn1n | VT1

  • High-performance computing: Hpc6a | Hpc6id | Hpc7a | Hpc7g

  • Previous generation: A1

Bare metal instances

The following bare metal instances are built on the Nitro System:

  • 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-m2.metal | mac2-m2pro.metal

  • 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

  • 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

  • Storage optimized: i3.metal | i3en.metal | i4i.metal

  • Accelerated computing: g4dn.metal | g5g.metal

  • 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

  • Instances built on the Nitro System have the following driver requirements:

    The current Amazon 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 kernel

    • Red 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

  • Instances with Amazon 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 kernel

    • Red 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)