AWS has made its Amazon EC2 R9g and R9gd instances generally available, introducing memory-optimized systems powered by AWS Graviton5 processors. The new Arm-based instances target database, caching, analytics, container, and microservices workloads that require high memory bandwidth and improved per-vCPU performance.
Compared with Graviton4-based R8g instances, AWS states that R9g can deliver up to 25% higher compute performance per vCPU. The platform also increases memory speed from DDR5-5600 to DDR5-8800 MT/s, expands L3 cache capacity by 5x, and raises networking and Amazon EBS bandwidth on the largest configurations. The r9g.48xlarge can provide up to 100Gbps of network bandwidth and 72Gbps of EBS bandwidth.
Target Workloads
R9g instances are designed for memory-intensive Linux workloads, including relational and open-source databases, in-memory caches such as Valkey, Redis, and Memcached, real-time analytics platforms, and containerized applications running on Kubernetes, Docker, Amazon EKS, or Amazon ECS. AWS also positions the instances for applications developed in C/C++, Rust, Go, Java, Python, .NET Core, Node.js, Ruby, and PHP.
The R9gd family provides the same compute and network capabilities as R9g but adds local NVMe SSD block storage. This configuration is intended for workloads that need low-latency local capacity for scratch data, temporary caching, distributed analytics, or database operations.
Instance Sizes and Specifications
Both instance families support Instance Bandwidth Configuration, allowing customers to adjust the allocation between Amazon EBS and Amazon VPC networking bandwidth in 25% increments. This may be useful for applications with predictable and asymmetric I/O requirements, including database and caching platforms that prioritize either storage throughput or network traffic.
| Instance size | vCPUs | Memory (GiB) | Instance Storage | Network Bandwidth (Gbps) | EBS Bandwidth (Gbps) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| r9g.medium | 1 | 8 | EBS-Only | Up to 15 | Up to 12 |
| r9g.large | 2 | 16 | EBS-Only | Up to 15 | Up to 12 |
| r9g.xlarge | 4 | 32 | EBS-Only | Up to 15 | Up to 12 |
| r9g.2xlarge | 8 | 64 | EBS-Only | Up to 17 | Up to 12 |
| r9g.4xlarge | 16 | 128 | EBS-Only | Up to 17 | Up to 12 |
| r9g.8xlarge | 32 | 256 | EBS-Only | 17 | 12 |
| r9g.12xlarge | 48 | 384 | EBS-Only | 25 | 18 |
| r9g.16xlarge | 64 | 512 | EBS-Only | 34 | 24 |
| r9g.24xlarge | 96 | 768 | EBS-Only | 50 | 36 |
| r9g.48xlarge | 192 | 1536 | EBS-Only | 100 | 72 |
| r9g.metal‑48xl | 192 | 1536 | EBS-Only | 100 | 72 |
R9g and R9gd instances run on the AWS Nitro System, which offloads virtualization, networking, and storage functions to dedicated hardware. They also incorporate the Nitro Isolation Engine, an enhancement AWS introduced with the C9g and M9g instance families. The component mediates access to virtual machine memory, processor register state, and I/O devices through a limited API surface. AWS says the implementation uses formal verification to validate its isolation properties.
| Instance size | vCPUs | Memory (GiB) | Instance Storage (NVMe SSD) | Network Bandwidth (Gbps) | EBS Bandwidth (Gbps) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| r9gd.medium | 1 | 8 | 1 x 59 GB | Up to 15 | Up to 12 |
| r9gd.large | 2 | 16 | 1 x 118 GB | Up to 15 | Up to 12 |
| r9gd.xlarge | 4 | 32 | 1 x 237 GB | Up to 15 | Up to 12 |
| r9gd.2xlarge | 8 | 64 | 1 x 474 GB | Up to 17 | Up to 12 |
| r9gd.4xlarge | 16 | 128 | 1 x 950 GB | Up to 17 | Up to 12 |
| r9gd.8xlarge | 32 | 256 | 1 x 1900 GB | 17 | 12 |
| r9gd.12xlarge | 48 | 384 | 3 x 950 GB | 25 | 18 |
| r9gd.16xlarge | 64 | 512 | 1 x 3800 GB | 34 | 24 |
| r9gd.24xlarge | 96 | 768 | 3 x 1900 GB | 50 | 36 |
| r9gd.48xlarge | 192 | 1536 | 3 x 3800 GB | 100 | 72 |
| r9gd.metal‑48xl | 192 | 1536 | 3 x 3800 GB | 100 | 72 |
The new instances are offered in 11 sizes, spanning from medium through metal-48xl. Customers can deploy them through supported Arm-based AMIs, including Amazon Linux 2023, Amazon Linux 2, Ubuntu 22.04 and later, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 and later, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 and later, and Debian 12 and later.
Migration and Availability
For organizations already running workloads on R8g, AWS indicates that most applications can move to equivalent R9g sizes without code modifications. Arm64 multi-architecture container images are also supported across Amazon EKS, Amazon ECS, and standard Kubernetes deployments.
Amazon EC2 R9g and R9gd instances are initially available in US East (N. Virginia and Ohio), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Frankfurt). They are available through On-Demand Instances, Spot Instances, Savings Plans, Dedicated Instances, and Dedicated Hosts.
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