You may need to meet custom needs in some scenarios, such as GPU capabilities, enhanced network capabilities, high clock speed, and local storage. You can create an elastic container instance from a specified Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance type. This topic describes how to create an elastic container instance from a specified ECS instance type.
Descriptions of ECS instance types
For more information about Elastic Container Instance-specific ECS instance types, see the descriptions of ECS instance types. The unit price of an elastic container instance is the same as that of the corresponding ECS instance. Both are billed on a per-second basis. For more information, see ECS price calculator.
You can check the ECS instance types supported in each region and zone in Overview of ECS instance types available to purchase in each region and zone. The following ECS instance families are supported:
ECS instance types of the x86 architecture
ECS instance type families of the x86 architecture fall into two categories based on whether they are suitable for enterprise scenarios: enterprise-grade families and shared families.
x86-based enterprise-level computing instance families
x86-based ECS instance types are based on the x86 architecture. Each vCPU corresponds to a hyper-thread of a processor core. They deliver stable performance and are suitable for scenarios such as enterprise-level applications, database systems, video encoding and decoding, and data analysis.
Category | x86-based enterprise-level instance family |
General-purpose instance families | g8i, g7a, g7, g6e, g6a, g6, g5, sn2, and sn2ne |
Compute-optimized instance families | c8a, c8i, c7a, c7, c6e, c6a, c6, c5, sn1, and sn1ne |
Memory optimized instance families | r7a, r7, r6e, r6a, r6, r5, se1ne, and se1 |
Unified-computing instance families | u1 |
Compute-intensive instance families | ic5 |
Instance families with high clock speeds | hfg7, hfg6, and hfg5 hfc7, hfc6, and hfc5 hfr7
|
Big data instance families | d1 and d1ne |
Instance families with local SSDs | i2 and i2g |
x86-based shared computing instance families
Shared ECS instance types are suitable for small and medium-sized websites and individuals. Compared with enterprise-level ECS instance types, shared ECS instance types emphasize the sharing of resource performance to maximize resource utilization. In this case, the stability of computing performance cannot be ensured, but the cost is reduced.
Category | x86-based shared instance family |
Burstable instance families | t6 and t5 |
Economy instance families | e |
Important If you use burstable instance families, take note of the following items:
Burstable instances use CPU credits to maintain computing performance and are suitable for scenarios in which CPU utilization is typically low but experiences occasional bursts. For more information about burstable instances, see Overview.
You can view the CPU credits of burstable instances in CloudMonitor. For more information, see Use CloudMonitor to monitor elastic container instances.
You cannot enable the unlimited mode for burstable instances.
GPU-accelerated ECS instance types
GPU-accelerated ECS instance types contain GPUs and are suitable for scenarios such as deep learning and image processing. GPU-related Docker images can be directly run on a GPU-accelerated elastic container instance. A NVIDIA GPU driver is pre-installed in the instance. The supported driver and CUDA versions vary with GPU types.
Category | GPU-accelerated instance family | Driver and CUDA versions |
vGPU-accelerated instance families | sgn7i-vws | NVIDIA 470.141.03 and CUDA 11.4 |
vgn7i-vws |
vgn6i-vws |
GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance families | gn7e | |
gn7i |
gn7s |
gn7 |
gn6v |
gn6e |
gn6i |
gn5i |
gn5 |
ECS instance types that use a local disk
Local disks reside on the same physical server as the elastic container instance to which the disks are attached. Local disks are cost-effective and provide high random IOPS, high throughput, and low latency. Local disks reside on a single physical server, which increases the risks of single points of failure (SPOFs). For more information, see Local disks.
Important Local disks reside on a single physical server, which increases the risks of SPOFs. The durability of data stored on local disks is determined by the reliability of the associated physical server. For more information, see Limits.
The following ECS instance families with local disks can be used to create elastic container instances:
d1, big data instance family
d1ne, big data instance family with enhanced network performance
i2, instance family with local SSDs
i2g, instance family with local SSDs
gn5, GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family
Note gn5 is a GPU-accelerated instance family. If you select this instance family, you must specify GPU-related parameters in addition to local disk-related parameters.
ECS instance types of the ARM architecture
ARM-based ECS instance types are based on the ARM architecture. Each vCPU corresponds to a physical core of a processor. They deliver stable performance and provide exclusive resources. They are suitable for scenarios such as containers, microservices, website and application servers, high-performance computing, and CPU-based machine learning.
Category | ARM-based instance family |
General-purpose instance families | g8y |
Compute-optimized instance families | c8y |
Memory optimized instance families | r8y |
For more information about ECS instance types, see the following topics:
Examples
You can set the k8s.aliyun.com/eci-use-specs annotation in the pod definition to specify multiple ECS instance types that are separated by commas (,).
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: nginx
labels:
app: nginx
spec:
replicas: 2
selector:
matchLabels:
app: nginx
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: nginx
annotations:
k8s.aliyun.com/eci-use-specs : "ecs.c5.large" #Replace the value with the ECS instance types as needed.
spec:
containers:
- name: nginx
image: nginx:1.7.9
ports:
- containerPort: 80