Amazon EC2 now supports CPU options optimization for license-included instances

Amazon EC2 CPU Options Update

Amazon EC2 now allows customers to modify an instance’s CPU options to optimize the licensing costs of Microsoft Windows license-included workloads. You can now customize the number of vCPUs and/or disable hyperthreading on Windows Server and SQL Server license-included instances to save on vCPU-based licensing costs.

This enhancement is particularly valuable for database workloads like Microsoft SQL Server that require high memory and IOPS but lower vCPU counts. By modifying CPU options, you can reduce vCPU-based licensing costs while maintaining memory and IOPS performance, achieve higher memory-to-vCPU ratios, and customize CPU settings to match your specific workload requirements.

For example, on an r7i.8xlarge instance running Windows and SQL Server license included, you can turn off hyperthreading to reduce the default 32 vCPU count to 16, saving 50% on the licensing costs, while still getting the 256 GiB memory and 40,000 IOPS that come with the instance.

This feature is available in all commercial AWS Regions and the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

What to do

• Review your current instances to identify potential savings.
• Modify CPU options as needed to optimize licensing costs.
• Monitor performance to ensure it meets your workload requirements.

Source: AWS release notes

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