AWS has made second-generation single-rack AWS Outposts generally available, a self-contained 42U rack that puts compute, storage, and networking together with up to 2,688 vCPUs and 100 TB of Amazon EBS. It runs the same APIs, console, automation, governance policies, and security controls as the multi-rack second-generation Outposts and the parent AWS Region, so an application built for the cloud moves on-premises without issue. AWS is suggesting this configuration is best for sites that need low latency, local data processing, or data residency but don’t have the floor space for a multi-rack deployment.
The Second Generation, Folded Into One Cabinet
AWS launched its second-generation Outposts racks in April 2025 as a multi-rack design that lets customers scale compute independently of a dedicated network rack. The single-rack version keeps that generation’s instances and networking and collapses them into a single 42U footprint, which is the point for customers who couldn’t justify or fit the multi-rack layout. Until now, the small end of the Outposts line was the 1U and 2U Outposts servers, which run on local instance storage and don’t offer EBS.
On the compute side, AWS supports the 7th-generation C7i, M7i, and R7i families on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, which the company says deliver twice the vCPU, memory, and network bandwidth of the first-generation racks and up to 40 percent better performance than the C5, M5, and R5 instances they replace, and AWS supports the newer 8th-generation C8i, M8i, and R8i families as well. EBS gp3 volumes have been available on second-generation racks since June 2025.
Accelerated Networking for Trading Floors and 5G Cores
The differentiator in the second generation is the pair of bare-metal accelerated networking instances. The bmn-sf2e instances pair Sapphire Rapids CPUs with AMD Solarflare X2522 network cards, in two sizes: bmn-sf2e.metal-16xl with 64 vCPUs, 512 GiB of DDR5, and two accelerated NICs at 100 Gbps, and bmn-sf2e.metal-32xl with 128 vCPUs, 1,024 GiB, and four accelerated NICs at 200 Gbps. AWS built them for capital markets, with native Layer 2 multicast, precision time protocol, and equal cable lengths so firms can meet fair-trading and equal-access rules on premises while plugging into existing trading infrastructure.
The bmn-cx2.metal-48xl carries 192 vCPUs, 1,024 GiB of DDR5, and two NVIDIA ConnectX-7 400G NICs for 800 Gbps aggregate, with the same L2 multicast and hardware PTP support, targeted toward real-time market data distribution, risk analytics, and telecom 5G core workloads. A third family, bmn-cx3a, appears in the single-rack instance list without a published spec.
Availability
Single-rack second-generation Outposts can be ordered now from the AWS Outposts console, with the list of supported countries and territories on the Outposts rack FAQ page. The storage ecosystem that grew up around the first generation carries over: Dell’s PowerStore and Pure’s FlashArray are both validated as external block storage for Outposts, which matters for sites that outgrow the 100 TB of EBS inside the rack.
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