
EC2 Instance Update – X1 (SAP HANA) and T2.Nano (Websites) - runesoerensen
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/ec2-instance-update-x1-sap-hana-t2-nano-websites/
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kimcheekumquat
>X1 instances will feature up to 2 TB of memory, a full order of magnitude
larger than the current generation of high-memory instances. These instances
are designed for demanding enterprise workloads including production
installations of SAP HANA, Microsoft SQL Server, Apache Spark, and Presto.

>The X1 instances will be powered by up to four Intel® Xeon® E7 processors.
The processors have high memory bandwidth and large L3 caches, both designed
to support high-performance, memory-bound applications. With over 100 vCPUs,
these instances will be able to handle highly concurrent workloads with ease.

Can't wait to launch one of these.

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kchoudhu
I assume I'll have to declare personal bankruptcy as soon as I launch one.

~~~
jewel
As a point of comparison, the Dedibox Extreme SP launched in 2013 and has 1TB
of RAM and costs €1899.99/month.

[http://documentation.online.net/en/serveur-
dedie/offres/serv...](http://documentation.online.net/en/serveur-
dedie/offres/serveur-dedibox-extreme-sp/server-extreme-sp)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Physical servers at other providers are almost universally cheaper than AWS.
At AWS, you're paying for it to be in your same account, have access to your
other AWS resources, etc.

EDIT: This is not to hate on AWS. I love AWS! (I do devops and
infrastructure). Its to say, if you need what AWS offers, buy it. If you
don't, architect your solution around other providers.

~~~
chimeracoder
> At AWS, you're paying for it to be in your same account, have access to your
> other AWS resources, etc.

You're forgetting the biggest part: you're also paying for the _flexibility_.
Subject to availability, you can provision and deprovision AWS resources at
will, which gives you far greater granularity than you can do with your own
hardware.

This flexibility enables you to save in the long run if you manager your
resources appropriately, but it also comes at a per-unit premium.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Very much this. If you're starting out or have a very dynamic load pattern
(Netflix), AWS is for you. If you have a fixed load pattern, you can see quite
a bit savings going to dedicated hardware (Stackoverflow/Stackexchange).

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jewel
2TB of RAM would cost $31k or so when built out of 32GB chips.

I don't know if EC2 is done this way, but imagine if the T2.micro class was
running on these servers (to save physical footprint). At 1.3¢ per hour, the
server would bring in $227k/year.

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trjordan
I know it's happening, but I'm so surprised to see them cater to technologies
like SAP HANA. 3 years ago, there was basically no overlap between people who
wanted to run products from SAP/Oracle and people who influenced product
offerings from AWS.

Obviously, that's different today.

~~~
edwinnathaniel
hi @trjordan, long time no hear ;)

It's amazing to see the progress from anti-cloud (or private-cloud) to "we're
cloud only" within that timeframe (I'm referring to companies that was hard-on
on-premise).

AFAIK, SAP HANA is being used by NBA (NBA.com/Stats), NFL, NHL
([http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=754248](http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=754248))
to provide real time statistics for the whole league. I wonder if they want to
move their infrastructure to AWS.

PS: I work for SAP

~~~
AndyNemmity
I know way too much about this to respond, but I'll just say there are a lot
of pieces driving this. :)

~~~
edwinnathaniel
Send me an email :D, would love to hear the story.

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AndyNemmity
It'll be nice, I'm in the middle of building a 14 node HANA cluster, and it
would be much easier to just have it all on AWS provided I get the same
performance.

edit: let alone the fact I could take it down when not in use. That's a
ridiculously cool thought. the price of this thing all together is insane.

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garyrichardson
"640K ought to be enough for anybody" \- Bill Gates, 1981

I can't wait to spin up a 64 node cluster of these new X1's.

~~~
strictnein
> "I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one
> involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is
> enough for all time … I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to
> me that says 640 K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the
> quotation just floats like a rumor, repeated again and again." \- Bill
> Gates, 1996

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Misattributed](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Misattributed)

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late2part
Very cool. I'm not an AMZN or AWS fanboy, but this is really neat stuff, and
very impressive how much they continue to increase their market lead.

~~~
monksy
I just wish there was a good competitor that bundled the other services like
they do.

~~~
nullrouted
Both Azure and GCE are competitors, both have pretty feature rich clouds. They
may not have feature parity but I'm guessing what they do have fits 70-80% of
peoples needs (Compute, Database, Storage, DNS, Load Balancing).

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nivertech
My speculation is that X1 instances is where Amazon QuickSight in-memory BI
service is running.

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nabaraz
Hacker news has become AWS news lately. In serious note, I am curious to see
pricing structure on X1.

~~~
ShaneOG
AWS re:Invent[0] is taking place this week, so there are a lot of news and
announcements.

[0] [https://reinvent.awsevents.com/](https://reinvent.awsevents.com/)

