Next Generation Cluster Computing on Amazon EC2 – The CC2 Instance Type
From the post:
Today we are introducing a new member of the Cluster Compute Family, the Cluster Compute Eight Extra Large. The API name of this instance is cc2.8xlarge so we’ve taken to calling it the CC2 for short. This instance features some incredible specifications at a remarkably low price. Let’s take a look at the specs:
Processing – The CC2 instance type includes 2 Intel Xeon processors, each with 8 hardware cores. We’ve enabled Hyper-Threading, allowing each core to process a pair of instruction streams in parallel. Net-net, there are 32 hardware execution threads and you can expect 88 EC2 Compute Units (ECU’s) from this 64-bit instance type. That’s nearly 90x the rating of the original EC2 small instance, and almost 3x the rating of the first-generation Cluster Compute instance.
Storage – On the storage front, the CC2 instance type is packed with 60.5 GB of RAM and 3.37 TB of instance storage.
Networking – As a member of our Cluster Compute family, this instance is connected to a 10 Gigabit network and offers low latency connectivity with full bisection bandwidth to other CC2 instances within a Placement Group. You can create a Placement Group using the AWS Management Console:
Pricing – You can launch an On-Demand CC2 instance for just $2.40 per hour. You can buy Reserved Instances, and you can also bid for CC2 time on the EC2 Spot Market. We have also lowered the price of the existing CC1 instances to $1.30 per hour.
You have the flexibility to choose the pricing model that works for you based on your application, your budget, your deadlines, and your ability to utilize the instances. We believe that the price-performance of this new instance type, combined with the number of ways that you can choose to acquire it, will result in a compelling value for scientists, engineers, and researchers.
Seems like it was only yesterday that I posted a note that NuvolaBase.com was running a free cloud beta. Hey! That was only yesterday!
Still a ways off from unmetered computing resources but moving in that direction.
If you have some experience with one of the cloud services, consider writing up a pricing example for experimenting with topic maps. I suspect that would help a lot of people (including me) get their feet wet with topic maps and cloud computing.