Performance and operational optimizations - Amazon Linux 2022
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Amazon Linux 2022 is in preview release and is subject to change.

Performance and operational optimizations

Amazon Linux 5.15 kernel

  • Amazon Linux 2022 (AL2022) uses the latest drivers for Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) and Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) devices. Amazon Linux 2022 has a focus on performance and functionality backports for hardware in Amazon EC2 infrastructure.

  • Kernel live patching is available for the x86_64 and aarch64 instance types. This reduces the need for frequent reboots.

  • All kernel build and runtime configurations include many of the same performance and operational optimizations of Amazon Linux 2.

Base toolchain selection and default build flags

  • The compiler optimization paths are optimized for performance on specific target architectures on EC2 hardware. Graviton 2 instances in particular are optimized for performance.

  • Amazon Linux 2022 uses the updated versions of Rust, Clang/LLVM, and Go.

Package selection and versions

  • Select backports to major system components include several performance improvements for running on Amazon EC2 infrastructure, especially Graviton instances.

  • Amazon Linux 2022 is integrated with several Amazon Web Services and features. This includes the Amazon CLI, SSM Agent, Amazon Kinesis Agent, and CloudFormation.

  • Amazon Linux 2022 uses Amazon Corretto as the Java Development Kit (JDK).

  • Amazon Linux 2022 provides database engines and programming language runtime updates to newer versions as they're released by upstream projects. Programming language runtimes with new versions are added when they're released.

Deployment in a cloud environment

  • The base Amazon Linux 2022 AMI and container images are frequently updated to support patching instance replacement.

  • Kernel updates are included in Amazon Linux 2022 AMI updates. This means that you don't need to use commands such as yum update and reboot to update your kernel.

  • In addition to the standard Amazon Linux 2022 AMI, a minimal AMI and container image is also available. Choose the minimal AMI to run an environment with the minimal number of packages that's required to run your service.

  • By default, Amazon Linux 2022 AMIs and containers are locked to a specific version of the package repositories. There's no auto-update when they're launched. This means that you're always in control of when you ingest any package update. You can always test in a beta/gamma environment before rolling out to production. If there's a problem, you can use the pre-validated rollback path.