This topic describes the features of Super Computing Cluster (SCC) instance families and lists the instance types of each family.

Introduction

SCC is based on ECS Bare Metal Instance. SCC significantly improves the network performance and acceleration ratio of large-scale clusters by using the high-speed Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) based interconnects. Therefore, SCC has all the benefits of ECS Bare Metal Instance and can provide high-quality network performance that features high bandwidth and low latency.

SCC is used in scenarios such as high performance computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, scientific and engineering computing, data analysis, and audio and video processing. In the clusters, nodes are interconnected over RDMA networks that feature high bandwidth and low latency. This ensures the parallel efficiency of applications in areas such as high performance computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) networks rival InfiniBand networks in terms of connection speed and can support more Ethernet-based applications.

The combination of SCC and other Alibaba Cloud computing services such as ECS and Elastic GPU Service provides E-HPC with the ultimate high-performance parallel computing resources and makes supercomputing on the cloud possible.

Comparison of SCCs, physical machines, and virtual machines

The following table compares the features of SCCs, physical machines, and virtual machines. In this table, Y means supported, N means not supported, and N/A means not applicable.

Feature type Feature SCC Physical machine Virtual machine
Automated O&M Delivery within minutes Y N Y
Compute Zero performance loss Y Y N
Zero feature loss Y Y N
Zero resource contention Y Y N
Storage Compatibility with ECS disks Y N Y
Startup from system disks Y N Y
Quick reset of system disks Y N Y
Use of ECS images Y N Y
Cold migration between physical and virtual machines Y N Y
No need to install the operating system Y N Y
No need of local RAIDs and better protection of data in disks Y N Y
Networking Compatibility with VPCs Y N Y
Compatibility with the classic network Y N Y
No communication bottlenecks between physical and virtual machine clusters in VPCs Y N Y
Management Compatibility with existing ECS management systems Y N Y
Consistent user experience on features such as VNC with that on virtual machines Y N Y
Out-of-band (OOB) network security Y N N/A

scchfc6, compute optimized SCC instance family with high clock speeds

To use scchfc6, submit a ticket.

Features
  • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.
  • Supports enhanced SSDs (ESSDs), standard SSDs, and ultra disks.
  • Supports both RoCE networks and VPCs. RoCE networks are dedicated to RDMA communication.
  • Provides all features of ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  • Uses 3.1 GHz Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8269 (Cascade Lake) processors that deliver a maximum turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz.
  • Offers a CPU-to-memory ratio of 1:2.4.
  • Suits the following scenarios:
    • Large-scale machine learning training
    • Large-scale high-performance scientific computing and simulations
    • Large-scale data analysis, batch processing, and video encoding
Instance types
Instance type vCPUs Physical cores Memory (GiB) GPUs Bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s Packet forwarding rate (bidirectional), Kpps RoCE bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s IPv6 support NIC queues ENIs (including one primary ENI) Private IP addresses per ENI
ecs.scchfc6.20xlarge 80 40 192.0 None 30.0 6,000 50 Yes 8 32 10
Note

scchfg6, general purpose SCC instance family with high clock speeds

To use scchfg6, submit a ticket.

Features
  • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.
  • Supports ESSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks.
  • Supports both RoCE networks and VPCs. RoCE networks are dedicated to RDMA communication.
  • Provides all features of ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  • Uses 3.1 GHz Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8269 (Cascade Lake) processors that deliver a maximum turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz.
  • Offers a CPU-to-memory ratio of 1:4.8.
  • Suits the following scenarios:
    • Large-scale machine learning training
    • Large-scale high-performance scientific computing and simulations
    • Large-scale data analysis, batch processing, and video encoding
Instance types
Instance type vCPUs Physical cores Memory (GiB) GPUs Bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s Packet forwarding rate (bidirectional), Kpps RoCE bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s IPv6 support NIC queues ENIs (including one primary ENI) Private IP addresses per ENI
ecs.scchfg6.20xlarge 80 40 384.0 None 30.0 6,000 50 Yes 8 32 10
Note

scchfr6, memory optimized SCC instance family with high clock speeds

To use scchfr6, submit a ticket.

Features
  • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.
  • Supports ESSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks.
  • Supports both RoCE networks and VPCs. RoCE networks are dedicated to RDMA communication.
  • Provides all features of ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  • Uses 3.1 GHz Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8269 (Cascade Lake) processors that deliver a maximum turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz.
  • Offers a CPU-to-memory ratio of 1:9.6.
  • Suits the following scenarios:
    • Large-scale machine learning training
    • Large-scale high-performance scientific computing and simulations
    • Large-scale data analysis, batch processing, and video encoding
Instance types
Instance type vCPUs Physical cores Memory (GiB) GPUs Bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s Packet forwarding rate (bidirectional), Kpps RoCE bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s IPv6 support NIC queues ENIs (including one primary ENI) Private IP addresses per ENI
ecs.scchfr6.20xlarge 80 40 768.0 None 30.0 6,000 50 Yes 8 32 10
Note

scch5, SCC instance family with high clock speeds

Features
  • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.
  • Supports standard SSDs and ultra disks only.
  • Supports both RoCE networks and VPCs. RoCE networks are dedicated to RDMA communication.
  • Provides all features of ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  • Uses 3.1 GHz Intel® Xeon® Gold 6149 (Skylake) processors.
  • Offers a CPU-to-memory ratio of 1:3.
  • Suits the following scenarios:
    • Large-scale machine learning training
    • Large-scale high-performance scientific computing and simulations
    • Large-scale data analysis, batch processing, and video encoding
Instance types
Instance type vCPUs Physical cores Memory (GiB) GPUs Bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s Packet forwarding rate (bidirectional), Kpps RoCE bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s IPv6 support NIC queues ENIs (including one primary ENI) Private IP addresses per ENI
ecs.scch5.16xlarge 64 32 192.0 None 10.0 4,500 25 × 2 No 8 32 10
Note

sccg5, general purpose SCC instance family

Features
  • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.
  • Supports standard SSDs and ultra disks only.
  • Supports both RoCE networks and VPCs. RoCE networks are dedicated to RDMA communication.
  • Provides all features of ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  • Uses 2.5 GHz Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8163 (Skylake) processors for consistent computing performance.
  • Offers a CPU-to-memory ratio of 1:4.
  • Suits the following scenarios:
    • Large-scale machine learning training
    • Large-scale high-performance scientific computing and simulations
    • Large-scale data analysis, batch processing, and video encoding
Instance types
Instance type vCPUs Physical cores Memory (GiB) GPUs Bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s Packet forwarding rate (bidirectional), Kpps RoCE bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s IPv6 support NIC queues ENIs (including one primary ENI) Private IP addresses per ENI
ecs.sccg5.24xlarge 96 48 384.0 None 10.0 4,500 25 × 2 No 8 32 10
Note

sccgn6e, GPU-accelerated compute optimized SCC instance family

To use sccgn6e, submit a ticket.

Features
  • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.
  • Offers a CPU-to-memory ratio of 1:8.
  • Uses 2.5 GHz Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8163 (Skylake) processors for consistent computing performance.
  • Provides all features of ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  • Storage:
    • Supports ESSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks.
    • Supports high performance cloud parallel file systems (CPFSs).
  • Networking:
    • Supports VPCs.
    • Supports RoCE v2 networks, which are dedicated to low-latency RDMA communication.
  • Uses NVIDIA V100 GPUs (SXM2-based) that feature:
    • Innovative Volta architecture
    • 32 GB HBM2 GPU memory
    • 5,120 CUDA cores
    • 640 Tensor cores
    • GPU memory bandwidth of up to 900 Gbit/s
    • Support for up to six NVLink connections and total bandwidth of 300 GB/s (25 GB/s per connection)
  • Suits the following scenarios:
    • Ultra-large-scale training for machine learning on a distributed GPU cluster
    • Large-scale high-performance scientific computing and simulations
    • Large-scale data analysis, batch processing, and video encoding
Instance types
Instance type vCPUs Memory (GiB) Local storage (GiB) GPUs GPU memory (GB) Bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s Packet forwarding rate (bidirectional), Kpps RoCE bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s IPv6 support NIC queues ENIs (including one primary ENI) Private IP addresses per ENI
ecs.sccgn6e.24xlarge 96 768.0 None V100 × 8 256 32.0 4,800 25 × 2 Yes 8 32 10
Note

sccgn6, GPU-accelerated compute optimized SCC instance family

Features
  • Is an instance family in which all instances are I/O optimized.
  • Offers a CPU-to-memory ratio of 1:4.
  • Uses 2.5 GHz Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8163 (Skylake) processors for consistent computing performance.
  • Provides all features of ECS Bare Metal Instance.
  • Storage:
    • Supports ESSDs, standard SSDs, and ultra disks.
    • Supports high performance CPFSs.
  • Networking:
    • Supports VPCs.
    • Supports RoCE v2 networks, which are dedicated to low-latency RDMA communication.
  • Uses NVIDIA V100 GPUs (SXM2-based) that feature:
    • Innovative Volta architecture
    • Up to 16 GB HBM2 GPU memory
    • 5,120 CUDA cores
    • 640 Tensor cores
    • GPU memory bandwidth of up to 900 Gbit/s
    • Support for up to six NVLink connections and total bandwidth of 300 GB/s (25 GB/s per connection)
  • Suits the following scenarios:
    • Ultra-large-scale training for machine learning on a distributed GPU cluster
    • Large-scale high-performance scientific computing and simulations
    • Large-scale data analysis, batch processing, and video encoding
Instance types
Instance type vCPUs Memory (GiB) Local storage (GiB) GPUs Bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s Packet forwarding rate (bidirectional), Kpps RoCE bandwidth (bidirectional), Gbit/s IPv6 support NIC queues ENIs (including one primary ENI) Private IP addresses per ENI
ecs.sccgn6.24xlarge 96 384.0 None V100 × 8 30 4,500 25 × 2 Yes 8 32 10
Note

Billing methods

SCCs support pay-as-you-go and subscription billing methods. For more information, see Billing method overview.