AWS Virtualization and Instance Types

Question 1

What are the two types of virtualization traditionally used by AWS?

Answer 1

HVM AMI’s (Hardware Virtual Machine)

And

PV AMI’s (Paravirtual)

Question 2

What are the advantages of ParaVirtualized AMI’s

Answer 2

Stability/performance is close to the real servers and hardware virtualization.

Overhead is very low

Question 3

What are advantages of Hardware Virtual Machine AMI’s?

Answer 3

HVM AMI’s (Hardware Virtual Machine)
• Can use special hardware extensions
• Can use PV drivers for network and storage
• Usually same or better Performance than PV alone

Question 4

What does AMI Stand for?

Answer 4

Amazon Machine Instance

Question 5

What workload are T2 Instance types intended for?

Answer 5

Intended for work loads that do not use the full CPU often or consistently

Question 6

What Types of Storage do T2 Instance Types Use?

Answer 6

EBS ONLY

Question 7

What is Burstable Performance?

Answer 7

T2 instances only :
More CPU resources on Demand
CPU Credits are used to “burst” past baseline performance up to 100% of a CPU Core

Question 8

Define a CPU Credit

Answer 8

A CPU Credit = 1 minute 100% CPU utilization in aggregate
1 CPU Running 100% for 1 minute
2 CPU’s running 50% for 1 minute

Question 9

How long to CPU Credits last

Answer 9

24 hours

Question 10

What Type of storage do M3 Instances use?

Answer 10

SSD Storage (ephemeral)

Question 11

What Type of Storage Do M4 instances support

Answer 11

EBS Optimized SSD

Question 12

What type of General Purpose Instance Supports Enhanced Networking?

Answer 12

M4 Instances

Question 13

What types of Instances are General Purpose

Answer 13

T2, M3, M4

Question 14

What type of instance is Memory Optimized?

Answer 14

R types

Question 15

This type of instance would be good for memcache or in Memory Databases

Answer 15

R type

Question 16

R3 Instance types have these 3 characteristcs

Answer 16

SSD, High Memory Capacity, Support for Network Clustering

Question 17

What AWS Type instance is optimized for Storage?

Answer 17

Type I

Question 18

What give an example application that should use a type I AMI

Answer 18

Hadoop ( many reads of disk)

Question 19

How are I type instances Storage Optimized?

Answer 19

High I/O performance (including high random Performance)
High Frequency Processors
SSD storage
Supports TRIM (frees up space to increase Performance)
Supports Enhanced Networking

Question 20

What type of AWS Instance is optimized for Compute Power

Answer 20

C type

Question 21

C3 Instances

Answer 21

SSD-backed instance

Support for Enhanced Networking and Clustering

Question 22

C4 Instances

Answer 22

Latest generation of Compute Optimized instances
Highest Performing processors (optimized for EC2)
Support for Enhanced Networking and Clustering
EBS-optimized

Question 23

Define AWS Enhanced Networking

Answer 23

Enhanced networking uses single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) to provide high-performance networking capabilities on supported instance types. SR-IOV is a method of device virtualization that provides higher I/O performance and lower CPU utilization when compared to traditional virtualized network interfaces. Enhanced networking provides higher bandwidth, higher packet per second (PPS) performance, and consistently lower inter-instance latencies. There is no additional charge for using enhanced networking.