What Is AWS Graviton? Here's When To Use It

When Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its new Arm-based processors, some circles believed it was a gamechanger for the public cloud markets. To begin with, it was the first time Arm architecture would roll out for enterprise-grade utility, and at a colossal scale. 

Arm processors had only run on smaller, less demanding devices such as iPhones. So why adopt it for much more demanding workloads in cloud services?

This post looks at what AWS Graviton is, if Graviton2 processors are better than the first generation Graviton A1 cores, and what it means for you.      

Table Of Contents

• What Is AWS Graviton?
• How Does It Compare To Graviton2?
• When Should You Use Graviton?
• What Are The Benefits?
• How Does Billing Work?
• AWS Graviton Benchmarks

What Is AWS Graviton?

AWS Graviton is a series of server processors that AWS released in 2018 based on Arm architecture for customers of its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) virtual machine instances. The first generation AWS Graviton processors featured custom silicon and 64-bit Neoverse cores.   

The EC2 A1 instances support Arm-based applications such as web servers, caching fleets, distributed data centers, and containerized microservices.

They settled on using an open Arm architecture. That meant saving costs by not creating a new chip from scratch. Instead, they took an existing Arm architecture and customized it for how AWS EC2 instances work.

Why did AWS create Graviton processors? 

Talking to NewStack towards the end of 2020, David Brown, Vice President of EC2 at AWS, revealed an interesting perspective. 

He said they noted a staggering number of Amazon EC2 customers, both large and small, were barely using their EC2 capacities. So after listening to customers such as SmugMug and Flickr, AWS switched from the X86-64 family of processors for their servers for several reasons.

AWS wanted to:

• Offer more choice in terms of selection of EC2 instances for customers 
• Target Arm-based applications such as web servers
• Provide high availability and security while reducing virtualization costs
• Align decent server performance with lower prices for customers

AWS likely also wanted an in-house family of server processors built to work how AWS works rather than depending on Intel and AMD for innovation. 

Are AWS Graviton processors any good?

Some circles felt the first generation AWS Graviton processors played second fiddle to AMD and Intel processors at the time. But over time, the processors proved slightly better than X86 based processors for servers. 

Ultimately, Arm processors have lower power consumption compared to X86 cores, for example. That may be one proposition that AWS had been going for, so it could trickle savings down to EC2 pricing.

But enterprise customers wanted in on the Graviton architecture, too. So in May 2020, AWS announced AWS Graviton2 with the promise to handle much more demanding workloads than before.  

AWS Graviton Vs. Graviton2: What Are The Differences?

At launch, AWS promised Graviton2 offered 40% “better price-performance than comparable” X86 processors and 7X better than first-generation AWS Graviton processors. The new-generation processors should also offer 4X compute cores, memory that’s 5X faster, and 2X as large caches as Graviton1 processors. 

With Graviton2, AWS also made some key improvements to empower developers to create cloud-native apps that can run securely and at scale. That includes the always-on 256-bit DRAM encryption.     

Here is a closer look at the differences between first-generation AWS Graviton and Graviton2 processors.     

1. Storage

AWS Graviton offers simple storage helpful in hosting web services like images, videos, and analytical data. Expect object-level data storage services that make it easier to access stored data remotely. 

In comparison, Graviton2 offers block-level storage that helps store files at multiple values, commonly known as blocks. Blocks also protect data by not allowing easy access to it remotely with an internet connection. Expect features such as business continuity, NO SQL database, and software testing. 

2. Information accessibility

AWS Graviton stores data in an unclustered format, making accessing data easy. You can retrieve the data using an HTTP protocol. In contrast, Graviton2 stores the data in a form that’s accessible only to the attached connection. 

3. Availability 

AWS Graviton is available through the internet using Application Programming Interface (API). In contrast, Graviton2 is available by the single instance attached to the hardware processor.

4. Durability

AWS Graviton offers durability by storing data in multiple availability zones, whereas Graviton2 stores data only in a single availability zone.

5. Uses

Graviton2 is not limited to just powering EC2 instances. It can also run Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon RDS, and Amazon EKS (container services).

When Should You Use AWS Graviton Processors?

Use AWS Graviton and Graviton2 for web servers, log processing, video encoding, electronic design automation, and machine learning based on a CPU interface. 

Keep in mind that if you currently use X86 based servers, you would need to re-architect your application to run on the Arm architecture. For the trouble, you would see a significant reduction in price performance, but over time.  

What Are The Benefits Of Using AWS Graviton?

The most significant AWS Graviton benefits are reduced costs, low latency, better scalability, improved availability, and increased security.

1. Cost-effective

The processor family is based on the Arm architecture. That means they are likely to be System on a Chip (SoC). That further translates to lower power consumption costs while offering satisfying performance to most customers.

2. Eco-system support

AWS Graviton and Graviton2 are based on the 64-bit Arm Neoverse core architecture. Several Linux-based operating systems support the configuration. They include Amazon Linux 2, SUSE, and Red Hat. That provides more choice to customers. 

3. Effective CPU power

AWS Graviton processors also offer up to 3.45% higher performance over traditional architecture. They also provide more straightforward processor implementations than X86 processors.  

4. Built for general purpose

AWS Graviton cores are also built to improve efficiency in servers, mid-size data storing processes, micro-services, and cluster computing.

5. Offers burstable workload

They provide users with an extensive set of burstable workload services such as scale microservices, small and medium database services, virtual desktops, and a selection of applications suitable for the critical business.

6. Build on computer intensive model

The processors are also built on a computer-intensive model like HD video performance computing, encoding videos, gaming, and CPU-based computer learning processes.

7. Offers enhanced networking

Expect support for a C6gn network at 100 Gbps networking capabilities of the Elastic Fabric Operator (EFO).

How Does AWS Graviton Billing Work?

After learning how AWS Graviton works and its computing benefits, here’s a look at Graviton and Graviton2 pricing:

1. General Purpose 
2. Current generation computer optimized 
3. Graphic processing unit instances current generation pricing 
4. Graphic processing unit instances previous generation pricing 

Each part describes hourly price ranges. 

For example: If you use on-demand m6g.xlarge for an hour, expect to see a $0.154 bill. If you opt for the EMR service, you are looking at a $0.039 bill.

Price model for general purpose

Current generation computer optimized pricing 

Graphics processing unit (GUP) instances current generation pricing

Graphics processing unit (GUP) instances previous generation pricing

Graviton Benchmarks

AWS Graviton

It provides the Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA), which supports higher and better Turn-points. You can use the bundle of storage services it offers for any cluster set. It is also helpful in creating a parallel file system using Elastic Compute Cloud (ECC) services. 

AWS Graviton also offers an on-demand Lustre file system that helps in managing large sets of files. Lustre is a high-speed parallel file management system that helps arrange a database without data contention. Additionally, AWS Graviton offers access to hardware accelerators to boost work speed. 

AWS Graviton2

AWS Graviton2 offers 64-bit Advanced RISC machine (ARS) cores. According to Amazon EC2 vice president, running the latest Intel and Graviton2 processors in the same benchmark would see Graviton2 outdo the Intel processor by 20% in speed and 20% in raw performance.    

Choosing The Right Solution For Your Organization

AWS’s new Arm-based processors offer cost savings, security, scalability, flexibility, and increased performance over X86 and X64 based processors. 

AWS Graviton2 EC2 instances support an even more comprehensive array of capabilities over AWS Graviton, including support for other AWS services such as RDS and EKS container services. But the first-generation AWS Graviton and the newest AWS Graviton2 processors also run on a different architecture to what most AWS public cloud customers currently use. 

Are you one of them and would like to switch over to AWS Graviton powered services?

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