The platform offers a variety of instance types to meet your requirements in different scenarios. This topic describes how to select and purchase ECS instances based on your business requirements, allowing you to make full use of the elastic scaling capabilities of your ECS instance.

Notes

This topic only describes instances of x86 Compute and EBM architectures. For specific instance types, refer to the instance types introduction; however, this topic does not cover burstable performance instances and shared instances which are of an x86 Compute architecture. For related information, refer to Burstable instances and Shared instances.

For recommendations on selecting heterogeneous compute-optimized GPU instances, refer to Best practices for GPU instance type selection.

Instance name

Instance type family name

Format: <Instance type family series><Instance type family generation><Processor type><Suffix>

Instance type family series	Instance type family generation	Processor type	Suffix
Lowercase letters, representing an instance type family type, are usually abbreviations of certain words that represent the performance domain of the instance type family. g: General-purpose c: Compute-optimized r: RAM, Memory-optimized. re: Memory Enhanced i: Local SSD d: Big Data hfg/c/r: High Frequency t: Burstable s/e: Shared Standard/Economic ebm prefix: the EBM type -flex suffix: FLEX	Arabic numerals that indicate the generation of the instance type family. A larger number indicates a later generation.	A lowercase English letter representing the CPU vendor. i: Intel a: AMD r: ARM	Lowercase English letters, indicating other attributes of the instance type family. e: The enhanced balance attribute t: The enhanced security attribute s: The storage attribute ne: The enhanced network attribute For more instance attributes, please refer to instance types.

Instance type name

Format: ecs.<Instance type family>.<Size>

ecs	Instance type family name	Size
Represents the product name Elastic Compute Service (ECS) and cannot be changed.	For details, refer to Instance type family name.	The number of vCPUs for an instance type, typically represented as large or <nx>large. large represents 2 vCPUs, xlarge represents 4 vCPUs, 2xlarge represents 2 * 4 = 8 vCPUs, and 3xlarge represents 3 * 4 = 12 vCPUs. So, a larger n value represents more vCPUs and a larger specification.

Instance type

ECS offers multiple instance types with different computing and storage capabilities to suit different scenarios.

Due to the large number of instance type families, some families do not strictly follow the above naming rules. See the following details:

Instance type family type	Instance type family name	Explanation
General-purpose/General-purpose Balance-enhanced	g4i g4ie g4il g4al g3il g3al g4als g4ale g4it g4ilt g3i g3a g3ilt g2i g2a g1ie	g: General-purpose. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:4. i: Intel processor a: AMD processor e: The enhanced balance attribute t: The enhanced security attribute
Compute-optimized/Compute Balance-enhanced	c4i c4ie c4il c4al c4als c4ale c3il c3al c3i c3a c2i c2a c1ie	c: Compute-optimized. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:2. i: Intel processor a: AMD processor e: The enhanced balance attribute
Memory-optimized/Memory Enhanced/Memory Balance-enhanced	r4i r4ie r4il r4ale r3il r3al r3i r3a re3il r2i r2a r1ie	r: Memory-optimized. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:8. re: Memory-enhanced. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:16. e: The enhanced balance attribute i: Intel processor a: AMD processor
FLEX	g4il-flex g4i-flex c4il-flex c4i-flex	g: General-purpose. This instance family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:4. c: Compute-optimized. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:2. i: Intel processor -flex: FLEX
Local SSD	i4 i4s i4ag i3s i2g i2	i: Local SSD. Local volumes of SSD type are offered. a: AMD processor s: The storage attribute. This instance family offers local volumes with large capacity. g: General-purpose
Big Data	d4c d4s d3s d2s d2c d2 d1s	d: Big Data. Local volumes of HDD type are offered. s: The storage attribute. This instance type family offers local volumes with large capacity. c: Compute-optimized
High Frequency	hfg4i hfc4i hfr4i hfr3i hfre3i hfg3il hfc3il hfr3il hfr2 hfc2 hfg2	hf: High frequency g: General-purpose. This instance family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:4. c: Compute-optimized. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:2. r: Memory-optimized. This instance family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:8. re: Memory Enhanced. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:16. i: Intel processor
Network Enhanced	g3ine g2ine	g: General-purpose. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:4. i: Intel processor ne: The enhanced network attribute
Burstable	t2	t: Burstable. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. Multiple processor-to-memory ratios (1:1, 1:2, and 1:4) are available.
Shared	s2	s: Shared. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. Multiple processor-to-memory ratios (1:1, 1:2, and 1:4) are available.
Shared		e	e: Shared Economic. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. Multiple processor-to-memory ratios (1:1, 1:2, and 1:4) are available.
HPC CPU	hpcg3ald ebmhpcg3ad	hpc: HPC-optimized instances that support RDMA network. g: General-purpose. vCPU:memory=1:4 a: AMD processor d: Local volumes of SSD type are offered.
General-purpose EBM	ebmg4id ebmg4ied ebmg3id ebmg3ad ebmg2i ebmg2a	ebm: The EBM server g: General-purpose. vCPU:memory=1:4 i: Intel processor a: AMD processor e: The enhanced balance attribute d: Local volumes of SSD type are offered.
Compute-optimized EBM	ebmc4id ebmc3id ebmc3ad	ebm: The EBM server c: Compute-optimized. vCPU:memory=1:2.7 i: Intel processor a: AMD processor d: Local volumes of SSD type are offered.
Memory-optimized EBM	ebmr3id	ebm: The EBM server r: Memory-optimized. vCPU:memory=1:10.7 i: Intel processor d: It includes a local volume of SSD type.
High Frequency Memory-optimized EBM	ebmhfr4id ebmhfr3i	ebm: The EBM server hf: High Frequency r: Memory-optimized. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:8.5 i: Intel processor
Local SSD EBM	ebmi3s ebmi2	ebm: The EBM server i: Local SSD. Local volumes of SSD type are offered. s: The storage attribute. This instance family offers local volumes with large capacity.
Big Data EBM	ebmd3s	ebm: The EBM server d: Big Data. Local volumes of HDD type are offered. s: The storage attribute. This instance type family offers local volumes with large capacity.
Security Enhanced EBM	ebmg2t	ebm: The EBM server g2t: Security enhanced. This instance type family does not offer local volumes. vCPU:memory=1:4.

Recommended instance type families for common business scenarios

Business scenario	Commonly used software	Recommended instance type families
Web service	Apache, Nginx	General-purpose, Network Enhanced, Compute-optimized, General-purpose EBM, Compute-optimized EBM, FLEX
Middleware	RocketMQ, RabbitMQ, Kafka	General-purpose, Network Enhanced, General-purpose EBM
Database	MySQL, NoSQL	Memory-optimized, local SSD
Cache	Redis, Memcache	Memory-optimized
Big data	HDFS, MapReduce	Local SSD, Big Data

Elastic Compute Service