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Elastic Container Instance:Create a pod with an x86 instance type

Last Updated:Apr 01, 2026

Add the k8s.aliyun.com/eci-use-specs annotation to specify Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance types of the x86 architecture when creating an Elastic Container Instance (ECI) pod. Specifying multiple instance types improves scheduling flexibility and reduces the chance of insufficient capacity errors.

Instance types

x86 ECS instance types fall into two categories: enterprise-level and shared.

Enterprise-level instance families

Enterprise-level instance types are built on the x86 architecture, where each vCPU corresponds to a hyper-thread of a processor core. They deliver stable, dedicated performance and are suitable for enterprise applications, database systems, video encoding and decoding, and data analytics.

CategoryInstance families
General-purposeg9ae, g9a, g9i, g8a, g8i, g7a, g7, g6e, g6a, g6, g5, sn2ne, sn2
Compute-optimizedc9ae, c9a, c9i, c8a, c8i, c7a, c7, c6e, c6a, c6, c5, sn1ne, sn1
Memory-optimizedr9ae, r9a, r9i, r8a, r8i, r7a, r7, r6e, r6a, r6, r5, se1ne, se1
General-purpose computingu2a, u2i, u1
Compute-intensiveic5
High clock speedhfg8i, hfg7, hfg6, hfg5 / hfc8i, hfc7, hfc6, hfc5 / hfr8i, hfr7
Big datad1, d1ne
Local SSDi2, i2g
Memory-enhancedre6

Shared instance families

Shared instance types are designed for small and medium-sized websites and individual developers. They use shared resources, so computing performance is not guaranteed, but the cost is lower than enterprise-level types.

CategoryInstance families
Economye
Instance families i2 and d1ne use local disks. To mount local disks, configure a volume. For more information, see ECS instance types that use a local disk.

For the full list of ECS instance types and their specifications, see:

Specify instance types

The following example shows how to set the annotation in a Deployment manifest:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: test
  labels:
    app: test
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      name: nginx-test
      labels:
        app: nginx
        alibabacloud.com/eci: "true"
      annotations:
        k8s.aliyun.com/eci-use-specs: ecs.c6.large,ecs.c5.large  # Specify up to five ECS instance types as needed.
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: registry.cn-shanghai.aliyuncs.com/eci_open/nginx:1.14.2
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

Annotation reference

ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
k8s.aliyun.com/eci-use-specsStringYesComma-separated list of ECS instance types. Maximum: five instance types. Example: ecs.c6.large,ecs.c5.large

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