All Products
Search
Document Center

Elastic Compute Service:Release notes

Last Updated:May 21, 2024

This topic describes the release notes for Elastic Compute Service (ECS) features and provides links to the relevant references.

2024

March 2024

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Private pool sharing

A private pool can be shared with other Alibaba Cloud accounts or within a resource directory of an organization. Other Alibaba Cloud accounts can use your shared private pool to create ECS instances. This improves resource utilization and reduces costs.

2024-03-28

All regions

Share a private pool

February 2024

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Building of a Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) confidential computing environment

Intel® TDX is a CPU hardware-based technology that provides hardware-assisted isolation and encryption for ECS instances to protect runtime data, such as CPU registers, memory data, and interrupt injections. TDX helps achieve higher levels of data privacy and mitigate risks that are associated with unauthorized access to running processes or sensitive data that is being processed.

2024-02-08

Beijing Zone I

Build a TDX confidential computing environment

Modification of the execution information of a task by using Cloud Assistant

If a task that you created for a command does not meet your business requirements, you can modify the execution information of the task, such as modifying the command content and scheduled execution mode and adding ECS or managed instances to the task.

2024-02-02

All regions

Modify the execution information of a task

January 2024

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Task status events and first heartbeat event

Cloud Assistant events include task status events and first heartbeat events. You can subscribe to the events to manage and monitor cloud resources in an efficient manner.

2024-01-19

All regions

Subscribe to Cloud Assistant events

2023

December 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Operating system upgrade

  • Windows Server 2008 can be upgraded to Windows Server 2012 in the same language version.

  • Windows Server 2012 can be upgraded to Windows Server 2016 in the same language version.

2023-12-28

All regions

Migrate and upgrade the operating system of an ECS instance

Elastic Remote Direct Memory Access (eRDMA) monitoring and checking

The diagnostics tool and CloudMonitor can be used to monitor and check eRDMA.

2023-12-21

All regions

Monitor and check eRDMA

November 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Network burst bandwidth

Specific instance types in sixth-generation or later instance families support network burst bandwidths. ECS instances of the instance types can burst their network bandwidths beyond the baseline level to handle traffic spikes.

2023-11-06

All regions

Network bandwidth

October 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Disk

The minimum capacity of enhanced SSDs (ESSDs) at the performance level 0 and ESSD AutoPL disks in the China (Hohhot), China (Guangzhou), and South Korea (Seoul) regions is 1 GB.

2023-10-30

All regions

Disks

Instant access

Starting 11:00 on October 12, 2023, canary release is performed by region to upgrade the instant access feature, and new snapshots of ESSDs at the performance levels 0, 1, 2, and 3 and ESSD AutoPL disks are immediately available after creation without the need for additional configurations.

2023-10-12

All regions

Use the instant access feature

Extended retention period of snapshots

The retention period of existing snapshots, including manual and automatic snapshots, can be extended to meet your requirements for data backup or audit compliance.

2023-10-09

All regions

September 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Operating system migration

ECS instances can be migrated from Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 to Alibaba Cloud Linux 3.

2023-09-20

All regions

Migrate and upgrade the operating system of an ECS instance

Sharing of encrypted snapshots

Encrypted snapshots can be shared.

2023-09-01

All regions

Share a snapshot

August 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Workbench

The AliyunServiceRoleForECSWorkbench role can be assumed by Workbench to gain access to ECS and Elastic Container Instance.

2023-08-28

All regions

Workbench service-linked role

May 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Copy and Encrypt Snapshot

The Copy and Encrypt Snapshot feature can be used to create an encrypted copy of a snapshot within the same region or across regions to back up data or enhance security.

2023-05-25

All regions

Copy a snapshot

Snapshot sharing

System disk snapshots and data disk snapshots can be shared with other Alibaba Cloud accounts or within an organization based on resource directories or folders. The sharees can create disks by using shared snapshots to meet daily O&M requirements.

2023-05-25

All regions

Share a snapshot

April 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g8a general-purpose instance family is released.

2023-04-21

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The c8a compute-optimized instance family is released.

2023-04-21

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The r8a memory-optimized instance family is released.

2023-04-21

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Boot mode change of images

The boot mode of an image can be changed in the ECS console. The boot mode is the mode in which the system disk is booted during instance creation. The following boot modes are supported: Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) and Basic Input Output System (BIOS).

2023-04-09

All regions

Modify the attributes and tags of an image

March 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Maximum transmission unit (MTU) management

Jumbo Frames can be enabled or disabled for ECS instances.

2023-03-25

All regions

MTUs

Instance family

The g8i general-purpose instance family is released.

2023-03-21

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The c8i compute-optimized instance family is released.

2023-03-21

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The r8i memory-optimized instance family is released.

2023-03-21

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The g8ae performance-enhanced general-purpose instance family is released.

2023-03-15

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The c8ae performance-enhanced compute-optimized instance family is released.

2023-03-15

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The r8ae performance-enhanced memory-optimized instance family is released.

2023-03-15

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

February 2023

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Disk resizing

The partitions and file systems of disks can be extended for instances that run specific operating systems by using Cloud Assistant in the ECS console.

2023-02-22

All regions

Step 1: Resize a disk to extend the capacity

Operating system migration

Instances can be migrated from CentOS 7 to Alibaba Cloud Linux 3.

2023-02-14

All regions

Migrate and upgrade the operating system of an ECS instance

Operating system migration

ECS instances can be migrated from CentOS 7 or CentOS 8 to operating systems of the same version or a different version.

2023-02-02

All regions

Migrate and upgrade the operating system of an ECS instance

2022

November 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g6r general-purpose instance family is released.

2022-11-17

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The c8y general-purpose instance family is released.

2022-11-15

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The c8y compute-optimized instance family is released.

2022-11-15

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The r8y memory-optimized instance family is released.

2022-11-15

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

September 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

ESSD AutoPL

The ESSD AutoPL disk category is released. ESSD AutoPL disks are provided by Alibaba Cloud based on ESSDs. ESSD AutoPL disks inherit the features and performance of ESSDs and decouple disk capacity from disk performance.

2022-09-28

Specific regions

ESSD AutoPL disks

Cross-zone instance type change

You can change the instance types of ECS instances across zones. This way, you can migrate ECS instances to different zones and change their instance types based on your business requirements.

2022-09-22

All regions

Change instance types across zones

August 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Anti-DDoS Basic Origin

The basic DDoS mitigation policy for ECS instances is adjusted and enforces new protection thresholds against DDoS attacks.

2022-08-31

All regions

Anti-DDoS Origin Basic

Instance family

The gn7e GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2022-08-25

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Workbench

The file management and multi-terminal features are added to Workbench.

2022-08-09

All regions

July 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

ENI modification

The attributes of a primary elastic network interface (ENI) can be modified.

2022-07-28

All regions

Modify the attributes of an ENI

Instance family

Specific general-purpose instance families, compute-optimized instance families, memory-optimized instance families, Super Computing Cluster (SCC) instance families, and instance families with high clock speeds support a specific number of IPv6 addresses per ENI.

2022-07-28

All regions

Overview of instance families

Workbench

The system management feature is added to Workbench.

2022-07-22

All regions

Perform system management

Image replication

An encrypted image copy task can be canceled.

2022-07-19

All regions

Copy a custom image

Alibaba Cloud Client

Alibaba Cloud Client can be used to view, query, and connect to ECS instances, elastic container instances, simple application servers, and Alibaba Cloud managed instances.

2022-07-08

All regions

Overview of Alibaba Cloud Client

June 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Operating system migration

Operating system migration reduces service downtime by retaining data stored on system disks. The following migrations are supported:

  • CentOS 7 to Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 or Anolis OS 7

  • CentOS 8 to Alibaba Cloud Linux 3 or Anolis OS 8

2022-06-17

All regions

Migrate a Linux operating system

Scheduled execution of commands

Cloud Assistant can be used to create and run commands on schedule. You can use this feature for recurring tasks, routine maintenance, and one-time tasks that need to be completed at a specific point in time.

2022-06-02

All regions

May 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Replication pair-consistent group

Replication pair-consistent groups can be used to batch manage multiple cloud disks in disaster recovery scenarios. The data of cloud disks in the same replication pair-consistent group can be restored to the same point in time to perform disaster recovery of one or more instances.

2022-05-27

All regions

Overview

Managed ENI

Managed ENIs are managed by Alibaba Cloud services. When ENIs are created for specific Alibaba Cloud services such as Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) and NAT Gateway, the ENIs can be configured to allow the services to manage the ENIs.

2022-05-20

All regions

Managed ENIs

April 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g8m general-purpose instance family is released.

2022-04-08

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

March 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Community image

Community images are publicly available. Custom images can be published as community images and used by other users in the Alibaba Cloud community.

2022-03-25

All regions

Community images

Session Manager

Session Manager is provided by Cloud Assistant. Compared with SSH and Virtual Network Computing (VNC), Session Manager makes your connections to ECS instances more convenient and secure.

2022-03-22

Specific regions

February 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

Instance types are added to the gn7i GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family.

2022-02-09

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

January 2022

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The d3c compute-intensive big data instance family is released.

2022-01-27

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

2021

November 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Snapshot

The instance snapshot feature is upgraded to the snapshot-consistent group feature.

2021-11-30

All regions

Create a snapshot-consistent group

Instance family

The ebmgn6ia GPU-accelerated compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2021-11-24

All regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmg7a general-purpose ECS Bare Metal Instance family, ebmc7a compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family, and ebmr7a memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family are released.

2021-11-16

All regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmg7 general-purpose ECS Bare Metal Instance family, ebmc7 compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family, and ebmr7 memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family are released.

2021-11-16

All regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmgn7e GPU-accelerated compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2021-11-15

All regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The sgn7i-vws vGPU-accelerated instance family that has shared CPUs is released.

2021-11-15

All regions

Overview of instance families

October 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g7se storage-enhanced general-purpose instance family, c7se storage-enhanced compute-optimized instance family, and r7se storage-enhanced memory-optimized instance family are released.

2021-11-02

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

September 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Cloud Assistant

The Operation Content and Result Delivery feature can be used to deliver O&M task execution records to Object Storage Service (OSS) and Simple Log Service for persistent storage.

2021-09-28

All regions

Use the Operation Content and Result Delivery feature

Instance family

The vgn7i-vws vGPU-accelerated instance family is released. This instance family comes with an NVIDIA GRID vWS license.

2021-09-15

All regions

Overview of instance families

August 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Community image

Community images are publicly available. Custom images can be published as community images and used by other users in the Alibaba Cloud community.

2021-08-11

Specific regions

Community images

Image

The Kernel Live Patching feature is supported by Alibaba Cloud Linux 3. The feature allows Alibaba Cloud Linux 3 to update its kernel with new patches without the need to restart ECS instances.

2021-08-10

All regions

Overview

Economical mode

The feature name is changed from No Fees for Stopped Instances (VPC-Connected) to Economical Mode.

2021-08-09

All regions

Economical mode

July 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Deployment set

The maximum number of ECS instances that can be created in a deployment set is increased from 7 to 20.

2021-07-29

All regions

Overview

Resource Assurance

The tag matching feature provided by Resource Assurance is used to match ECS instances with open private pools based on tags.

2021-07-19

All regions

Overview

Instance family

The gn7i GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2021-07-01

All regions

Overview of instance families

June 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Image

The Kernel Live Patching feature is supported by Alibaba Cloud Linux 2. The feature allows Alibaba Cloud Linux 2 to update its kernel with new patches without the need to restart ECS instances.

2021-06-30

All regions

Overview

Automatic reactivation

After overdue payments in your account are completed, the ECS instances that were stopped due to the overdue payments are automatically reactivated. If the ECS instances cannot be automatically reactivated, manually reactivate them at the earliest opportunity.

2021-06-22

All regions

Start an instance

Instance family

The ebmgn7i GPU-accelerated compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2021-06-08

All regions

Overview of instance families

May 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The ebmc6me compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2021-05-28

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The g7a general-purpose instance family, c7a compute-optimized instance family, and r7a memory-optimized instance family are released.

2021-05-28

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

April 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g7 general-purpose instance family, c7 compute-optimized instance family, and r7 memory-optimized instance family are released.

2021-04-19

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Image

The Alibaba Cloud Linux 3 public image is released.

2021-04-16

All regions

Overview

Reserved instance

Reserved instances can be applied to more instance families.

2021-04-15

All regions

Overview

Instance hibernation

The instance hibernation feature is released. When hibernated ECS instances are restarted, the instances automatically restore their applications to the states that the applications were in before hibernation.

2021-04-06

Specific regions

Hibernate instances

Snapshot

The instance snapshot feature is released. You can simultaneously create snapshots for multiple cloud disks on an ECS instance by creating a snapshot for the instance. This ensures the point-in-time write consistency of data.

2021-04-06

Specific regions

Create a snapshot-consistent group

Snapshot

The application-consistent snapshot feature is released. You can use application-consistent snapshots to roll back applications to ensure that the applications start in a consistent state.

2021-04-06

Specific regions

Create application-consistent snapshots

March 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g7t security-enhanced general-purpose instance family, c7t security-enhanced compute-optimized instance family, and r7t security-enhanced memory-optimized instance family are released.

2021-03-31

Specific regions

Instance family

The ebmhfg7 general-purpose ECS Bare Metal Instance family with high clock speeds, ebmhfc7 compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family with high clock speeds, and ebmhfr7 memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family with high clock speeds are released.

2021-03-03

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

February 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The i3g instance family with local SSDs is released.

2021-02-26

All regions

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The g7ne network-enhanced general-purpose instance family is released.

2021-02-09

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

January 2021

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The gn7 GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2021-01-12

Specific regions

Overview of instance families

Image Builder

Image Builder is an all-in-one image customization service provided by ECS that allows you to create custom images for ECS instances across regions and Alibaba Cloud accounts.

2021-01-11

All regions

What is Image Builder

History

Table 1. December 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Resource Assurance

Resource Assurance is a comprehensive service that guarantees the provision of resources to meet your business needs. It can be used to quantify the amount of available resources, reserve resources, and plan private pools.

2020-12-14

Some

Overview

faasutil

faasutil is released. faasutil is a next-generation command line tool provided by Alibaba Cloud FPGA as a Service (FaaS). This tool simplifies the management of FPGA-accelerated instances and helps improve their stability, security, and scalability.

2020-12-08

Some

Instant access

The instant access feature is available for public preview in the China (Hohhot) region.

2020-12-03

Some

Use the instant access feature

Table 2. November 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The re6p persistent memory-optimized instance family is released.

2020-11-04

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The i3 instance family with local SSDs is released.

2020-11-03

Some

Overview of instance families

Table 3. October 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g6se storage-enhanced instance family is released.

2020-10-23

Some

Overview of instance families

Table 4. September 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Preemptible instance

A preemptible instance can be configured to have no protection period when it is created by calling an API operation.

2020-09-25

All

Savings plan

Savings plans are provided as discount plans that can be applied to offset the bills of pay-as-you-go instances, excluding preemptible instances.

2020-09-18

All

Instance family

The g6t security-enhanced general-purpose instance family and c6t security-enhanced compute-optimized instance family are released.

2020-09-08

Some

Instance family

The g6a general-purpose instance family, c6a compute-optimized instance family, and r6a memory-optimized instance family are released.

2020-09-07

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmg6a general-purpose ECS Bare Metal Instance family, ebmc6a compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family, and ebmr6a memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family are released.

2020-09-07

Some

Overview of instance families

Table 5. August 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Tag

Tags can be added to more resources, including reserved instances.

2020-08-18

All

Overview

Snapshot

Snapshots can be replicated across regions to improve service reliability and availability.

2020-08-14

Some

Copy a snapshot

Table 6. July 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Image family

The image family feature is released to facilitate smooth upgrade and rollback of images.

2020-07-02

All

Overview

Table 7. June 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The d2c compute-intensive big data instance family is released.

2020-06-23

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The scchfc6 compute-optimized Super Computing Cluster (SCC) instance family with high clock speeds, scchfg6 general-purpose SCC instance family with high clock speeds, and scchfr6 memory-optimized SCC instance family with high clock speeds are released.

2020-06-23

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmc6e compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family with enhanced performance, ebmg6e general-purpose ECS Bare Metal Instance family with enhanced performance, and ebmr6e memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family with enhanced performance are released.

2020-06-23

All

Overview of instance families

Storage capacity unit (SCU)

SCUs can be used to offset the pay-as-you-go bills of different storage resources, such as disks, Object Storage Service (OSS) buckets, Apsara File Storage NAS file systems, and snapshots.

2020-06-23

All

Elastic Block Storage (EBS)

The sequence numbers of disks attached to ECS instances can be queried.

2020-06-16

All

Query the serial number of a disk

Network

Virtual private clouds (VPCs) of ECS instances can be changed in the ECS console. This feature is in invitational preview.

2020-06-10

Some

Change the VPC of an ECS instance

Enhanced SSD (ESSD)

ESSDs at the performance level 0 (PL0 ESSDs) are in public preview in the China (Hangzhou) and China (Beijing) regions.

2020-06-10

Some

Local disk-related system event

System events about local disk damages can be queried and damaged local disks can be isolated in the ECS console.

2020-06-09

All

Isolate damaged local disks

Instance family

The hfg7 general-purpose instance family with high clock speeds, hfc7 compute-optimized instance family with high clock speeds, and hfr7 memory-optimized instance family with high clock speeds are released.

2020-06-09

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The g6e general-purpose instance family with enhanced performance, c6e compute-optimized instance family with enhanced performance, and r6e memory-optimized instance family with enhanced performance are released.

2020-06-09

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmre6p non-volatile memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family with enhanced performance is released.

2020-06-09

Some

Overview of instance families

Table 8. May 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Image

Technical support for the CoreOS Container Linux public images is discontinued. CoreOS Container Linux has reached its end of life, and no more security patches are provided. For security concerns, we recommend that you no longer use CoreOS Container Linux images. Alibaba Cloud will soon release Fedora CoreOS public images as a replacement.

2020-05-26

All

Release notes

Reserved instance

The normalization factors of instance types can be queried to help understand the computing power requirements in the splitting and merging of reserved instances and the size flexibility of regional reserved instances.

2020-05-14

All

Table 9. April 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The ebmre6-6t memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family with enhanced performance is released.

2020-04-28

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The re6 memory-optimized instance family with enhanced performance is released.

2020-04-20

Some

Overview of instance families

Table 10. March 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The i2ne and i2gne instance families with local SSDs are released.

2020-03-11

All

Overview of instance families

Table 11. February 2020

Table 12. January 2020

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Tag

A wide range of tag features are provided. Tags can be used to control permissions of Resource Access Management (RAM) users. Tags can be added and modified by using Operation Orchestration Service (OOS).

2020-01-03

All

Instance family

The d2s storage-intensive big data instance family is released.

2020-01-17

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The vgn6i lightweight GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2020-01-16

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The s6 shared standard instance family is released.

2020-01-16

Some

Overview of instance families

Image

Technical support for the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 public images is discontinued. We recommend that you upgrade to Windows Server 2012 or later at your earliest convenience.

2020-01-14

All

Overview

Table 13. December 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

SCU

40 GiB, 100 GiB, and 500 GiB are added as capacity options for SCUs.

2019-12-05

Some

Overview

Table 14. November 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Tag

The tag editor feature is released. Up to 5,000 resource data entries across services and regions can be queried. The tags of resources can be edited, and resource information can be exported.

2019-11-28

All

Use the tag editor to manage resource tags

Snapshot

The quota for automatic snapshots is increased to 1,000.

2019-11-15

All

Overview

Instance family

The gn6e GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2019-11-14

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmgn6e GPU-accelerated compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2019-11-14

Some

Overview of instance families

Table 15. October 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The hfc6, hfg6, and hfr6 instance families with high clock speeds are released.

2019-10-15

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmhfc6, ebmhfg6, and ebmhfr6 ECS Bare Metal Instance families are released.

2019-10-10

All

Overview of instance families

Table 16. September 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Disk resizing

  • Standard SSDs and ultra disks can be resized to up to 32 TiB.

  • ESSDs can be resized online.

2019-09-26

All

Instance family

The ebmc6, ebmg6, and ebmr6 ECS Bare Metal Instance families are released.

2019-09-24

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The t6 burstable instance family is released.

2019-09-12

Some

Overview of instance families

Security group

The maximum number of security group rules that a security group can contain is increased to 200.

2019-09-03

All

Limits

Snapshot

The individual quotas for manual snapshots and automatic snapshots are increased to 256.

2019-09-02

All

Overview

Table 17. August 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The ebmgn6v GPU-accelerated compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2019-08-26

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmgn6i GPU-accelerated compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2019-08-26

Some

Overview of instance families

Image

The image export feature is available in all Alibaba Cloud regions.

2019-08-21

All

Export a custom image

Snapshot

The snapshot service is available for commercial use. All existing and new snapshots are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

2019-08-21

All

Snapshots

Table 18. July 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The g6 general-purpose instance family is released.

2019-07-30

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The c6 compute-optimized instance family is released.

2019-07-30

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The r6 memory-optimized instance family is released.

2019-07-30

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmc5s network-enhanced compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2019-07-30

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmg5s network-enhanced general-purpose ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2019-07-30

Some

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The ebmr5s network-enhanced memory-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2019-07-30

Some

Overview of instance families

Table 19. June 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Auto Provisioning

Auto Provisioning uses auto provisioning groups to schedule and maintain computing resources. This makes it easy to deploy clusters of instances across billing methods, instance types, and zones.

2019-06-28

All

Overview

ESSD

The ESSD service is available for commercial use after the public preview is complete. Three performance levels of ESSDs are released.

2019-06-28

Some. For more information about the supported regions, see FAQ.

ESSDs

vgn5i, lightweight GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family

GRID drivers are provided for vgn5i instances.

2019-06-19

All

Install a GRID driver on a Linux vGPU-accelerated instance

Table 20. May 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

EBS

Subscription disks can be created by calling API operations.

2019-05-15

All

CreateDisk

Table 21. April 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Elastic network interface (ENI)

A single ENI can be assigned multiple private IP addresses.

2019-04-28

All

Assign secondary private IP addresses

EBS

Data disks of an ECS instance can be resized online to meet storage requirements without restarting the instance.

2019-04-24

All

Step 1: Resize a disk to extend its capacity

EBS

System disks can be resized.

2019-04-24

All

Resize disks offline for Linux and Windows instances

Snapshot

Snapshots can be created for expired disks.

2019-04-20

All

Table 22. March 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Public image

Aliyun Linux 2 public images are released.

2019-03-27

All

Overview

Instance family

The gn6i GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2019-03-21

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The sccgn6 GPU-accelerated compute-optimized SCC instance family is released.

2019-03-20

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The vgn5i lightweight GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2019-03-19

All

Overview of instance families

Reserved instance

The reserved instance feature is in invitational preview.

2019-03-18

All

Overview

Cloud Assistant

Cloud Assistant is available for ECS instances in the classic network.

2019-03-01

All

Install Cloud Assistant Agent

Table 23. January 2019

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Event notification

Status change events and alert events for the recycling of preemptible instances are supported.

2019-01-29

All

Overview

Table 24. December 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Cloud Assistant

Cloud Assistant is available in the UK (London) region.

2018-12-31

All

Overview

Preemptible instance

Preemptible instances are billed by second.

2018-12-17

All

Preemptible instances

Instance

The release protection feature is supported.

2018-12-14

All

Enable or disable release protection for ECS instances

ENI

The DescribeNetworkInterfaces operation can be called to query the public IP address associated with an ENI.

2018-12-04

All

DescribeNetworkInterfaces

Table 25. November 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Custom image

Packer can be used to create custom images.

2018-11-30

All

Use Packer to create a custom image

Instance family

The re4e high memory instance family is released.

2018-11-30

All

Overview of instance families

EBS

Subscription disks can be separately created and attached to subscription instances.

2018-11-29

All

Create a subscription disk

Deployment set

The deployment set feature is released.

2018-11-16

All

Overview

Table 26. October 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The f3 FPGA-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2018-10-31

All

Overview of instance families

API best practices

API best practices are released in the ECS console.

2018-10-19

All

Create an instance on the Custom Launch tab

Table 27. September 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

t5, burstable instance family

Unlimited mode is available for the t5 burstable instance family.

2018-09-30

All

Unlimited mode

Instance metadata

Information of O&M system events is included in instance metadata.

2018-09-14

All

Overview of ECS instance metadata

Instance health status

The health status of each ECS instance is displayed on the instance details page.

2018-09-14

All

View the health status of ECS instances

Instance family

The gn6v new-generation GPU-accelerated instance family (V100 model) is released.

2018-09-12

All

Overview of instance families

Instance purchase

Multiple instances can be renewed at a time, and historical instances can be purchased.

2018-09-07

All

Renew a subscription instance

System event

API operations used to create or cancel simulated events are released.

2018-09-03

All

Billing method

Subscription instances can be changed into pay-as-you-go instances.

2018-09-01

All

Change the billing method of an instance from subscription to pay-as-you-go

Table 28. August 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Local disk

The O&M of instances that have local disks attached is optimized.

2018-08-31

All

Local disks

Cloud Assistant

Cloud Assistant is supported in the ECS console.

2018-08-17

All

Overview

Instance family

SCC instance families are released.

2018-08-16

All

Overview of instance families

Table 29. July 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Custom image

Images in the qcow2 format can be imported.

2018-07-30

All

Security group

Security group rules can be modified.

2018-07-25

All

Modify security group rules

Tag

Tags can be added to resources when the resources are created.

2018-07-20

All

Create or add a tag

Instance family

The ebmc4 compute-optimized ECS Bare Metal Instance family is released.

2018-07-18

All

Overview of instance families

Snapshot

The estimated remaining time required to create snapshots is displayed.

2018-07-17

All

Create a snapshot for a disk

Account and user privileges

Quota management is supported.

2018-07-15

All

View quotas (old version)

ESSD

The ESSD service is in public preview in Beijing Zone G.

2018-07-14

Beijing Zone G

Disks

Instance troubleshooting

System logs and screenshots can be viewed.

2018-07-13

All

View system logs and screenshots

Security group

A ticket can be submitted to modify the maximum numbers of instances and security group rules that can be added to a security group.

2018-07-10

All

Limits

Instance family

The ic5 compute-intensive instance family is released.

2018-07-09

All

Overview of instance families

Table 30. June 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Public image

Operating systems including Red Hat can be selected from public images to create ECS instances.

2018-06-29

All

Create an instance on the Custom Launch tab

Instance configuration upgrade

The configurations of pay-as-you-go instances can be upgraded or downgraded across instance families.

2018-06-15

All

Instance families that support instance type changes

Billing method

Subscription instances can be renewed on a weekly basis.

2018-06-12

All

Renew a subscription instance

Security group

Security groups in the classic network can be cloned to a VPC.

2018-06-06

All

Clone a security group

Active O&M

Phase 2 of active O&M is brought online.

2018-06-01

All

Overview

Table 31. May 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Custom image

The image compliance tool is released.

2018-05-28

All

Check whether an image meets the import requirements

System event

ECS system events are updated to CloudMonitor and can be queried.

2018-05-25

All

Overview

Launch template

The launch template feature is released.

2018-05-11

All

Create a launch template

Table 32. April 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Billing method

Pay-as-you-go instances can be changed into subscription instances.

2018-04-23

All

Change the billing method of an instance from pay-as-you-go to subscription

Instance configuration downgrade

The configurations of expired subscription instances can be downgraded while the instances are being renewed.

2018-04-13

All

Renew an instance and downgrade its configurations

Table 33. March 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

GPU-accelerated instance

NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) GPU-accelerated containers are supported.

2018-03-28

All

Deploy an NGC environment on gn5 instances

System event

The system event feature is released.

2018-03-26

All

Overview

ECS Bare Metal Instance

ECS Bare Metal Instance is released.

2018-03-14

All

Overview

Instance identity

The ECS instance identity feature is released.

2018-03-01

All

Use instance identities

Table 34. February 2018

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

ECS API

The API operation used to check whether the configurations of ECS instances can be upgraded or downgraded is released.

2018-02-10

All

DescribeResourcesModification

Subscription instance

The number of days during which an instance stays expired before it is released is extended from 7 to 15.

2018-02-07

All

Subscription

ECS API

API operations used to create and query resources are released.

2018-02-02

All

DescribeAvailableResource

Table 35. 2018年1月

Table 36. December 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

No Fees for Stopped Instances (VPC-Connected)

The No Fees for Stopped Instances (VPC-Connected) feature is supported for pay-as-you-go instances.

2017-12-14

All

Economical mode

ENI

The ENI feature is released.

2017-12-08

All

Overview

FPGA-accelerated instance family

The f1 FPGA-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2017-12-02

All

Overview of instance families

ECS API

The API operation used to batch create instances is released.

2017-12-01

All

RunInstances

Instance troubleshooting

The real-time diagnostics feature is supported in the ECS console.

2017-12-01

All

Automatic diagnostics system

Table 37. November 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Cloud Migration tool

The Cloud Migration tool is released.

2017-11-27

All

What is SMC?

Security group rule

Security group rules can be imported and exported.

2017-11-23

All

Manage security group rules

Subscription instance

The auto-renewal feature can be disabled for subscription instances.

2017-11-23

All

ModifyInstanceAutoRenewAttribute

Billing method

API operations used to create and renew weekly subscription instances are released.

2017-11-03

All

CreateInstance

Instance RAM role

RAM roles can be assigned to ECS instances.

2017-11-01

All

Overview

Table 38. October 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Elastic IP Address (EIP)

The public IP addresses of instances in VPCs can be converted into EIPs.

2017-10-31

All

Convert the static public IP address of an instance in a VPC to an EIP

Preemptible instance

The preemptible instance feature is released.

2017-10-18

All

What are preemptible instances?

t5, burstable instance family

The t5 burstable instance family is released.

2017-10-09

All

Overview

Table 39. September 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Billing method

Bills of pay-as-you-go instances and disks are accurate to the second and generated by hour.

2017-09-29

All

Pay-as-you-go

gn5i instance family

The gn5i GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released. It is applicable to deep learning and online inference scenarios.

2017-09-23

All

Overview of instance families

Disk encryption

Disks can be encrypted.

2017-09-05

All

Encryption overview

Table 40. August 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Security group rule

Security group rules can be configured based on 5-tuples.

2017-08-31

All

Security group quintuple rules

ClassicLink

ClassicLink allows instances in the classic network to be connected to instances in VPCs.

2017-08-25

All

Network types

Instance family

The new-generation instance families with high clock speeds and instance families with local SSDs are released. They are powered by Skylake processors and support 25 Gigabit Ethernet.

2017-08-22

All

Overview of instance families

ECS API

The API operation used to change the bandwidth configurations of instances is released.

2017-08-17

All

ModifyInstanceNetworkSpec

Custom image

Custom images can be imported.

2017-08-10

All

Import custom images

Table 41. July 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Image

Technical support for the Windows Server 2003 public images is discontinued. We recommend that you upgrade to Windows Server 2012 or later at your earliest convenience.

2017-07-20

All

Overview

Security group

Security group rules can be configured to isolate the instances in a security group from each other.

2017-07-07

All

Network isolation within a basic security group

Table 42. June 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Classic network

The classic network is unavailable for users who create ECS instances at or after 12:00:00 on June 16, 2017 (UTC+8) for the first time. We recommend that you use VPC.

2017-06-16

All

What is a VPC?

Table 43. May 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance RAM role

The API operation used to manage instance RAM roles is released.

2017-05-26

All

Use an instance RAM role by calling API operations

Instance family

The network-enhanced instance family is released.

2017-05-23

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The d1 storage-intensive instance family is released.

2017-05-12

All

Overview of instance families

Security group

The default security group rule is modified to expose only Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ports, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) port 22, and TCP port 3389.

2017-05-11

All

Overview

Security group

Security groups can be backed up, overwritten, and restored.

2017-05-10

All

Restore security group rules

Table 44. April 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

SSH key pair

The SSH key pair feature is released.

2017-04-25

All

Overview

Table 45. February 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Custom image

cloud-init supports some custom images.

2017-02-24

All

Install cloud-init

Instance family

The i1 I/O optimized instance family with local SSDs is released.

2017-02-17

All

Overview of instance families

Snapshot

System disk snapshots can be used to create data disks.

2017-02-15

All

Create a disk from a snapshot

Instance family

The gn4 GPU-accelerated compute-optimized instance family is released.

2017-02-14

All

Overview of instance families

Table 46. January 2017

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Instance family

The ga1 GPU-accelerated visualization and compute-optimized instance family is released.

2017-01-24

All

Overview of instance families

Instance family

The se1 dedicated instance family is released.

2017-01-21

All

Overview of instance families

Table 47. 2016

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Snapshot

Snapshot 2.0 is released.

2016-03-15

All

Overview

Disk resizing

System disks can be resized.

2016-01-15

All

Resize disks offline for Linux and Windows instances

Table 48. 2015

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

Custom image

Custom images can be imported.

2015-12-15

All

Instructions for importing images

Security group

Security groups are supported in the ECS console.

2015-11-02

All

Create a security group

Alibaba Cloud market mirror image

Alibaba Cloud market mirror images are available for commercial use.

2015-09-02

All

Use Alibaba Cloud Marketplace images

Tag

The tag feature is released.

2015-08-20

All

Overview

System disk

The operating systems of pay-as-you-go instances can be replaced.

2015-08-13

All

Replace the operating system of an instance

Custom image

Custom images can be shared.

2015-05-15

All

Share or unshare a custom image

Disk resizing

Disks can be resized offline.

2015-04-20

All

Overview

Custom image

The image replication feature is released.

2015-01-26

All

Copy a custom image

Table 49. 2014

Feature

Description

Release date

Region

References

EBS

The independent disk feature is released.

2014-08-22

All

Elastic Block Storage devices