Cloud Instance Recommendations
Simplyblock has been tested on and recommends the following instance types. There is generally no restriction on other instance types as long as they fulfill the system requirements.
AWS Amazon EC2 Recommendations
Simplyblock can work with local instance storage (local NVMe devices) and Amazon EBS volumes. For performance reasons, Amazon EBS is not recommended for high-performance clusters.
Critical
If local NVMe devices are chosen, make sure that the nodes in the cluster are provisioned into a placement group of type Spread!
Generally, with AWS, there are three considerations when selecting virtual machine types:
- Minimum requirements of vCPU and RAM
- Locally attached NVMe devices
- Network performance (dedicated and "up to")
Based on those criteria, simplyblock commonly recommends the following virtual machine types for storage nodes:
| VM Type | vCPU(s) | RAM | Locally Attached Storage | Network Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i4g.8xlarge | 32 | 256 GB | 2x 3750 GB | 18.5 GBit/s |
| i4g.16xlarge | 64 | 512 GB | 4x 3750 GB | 37.5 GBit/s |
| i3en.6xlarge | 24 | 192 GB | 2x 7500 GB | 25 GBit/s |
| i3en.12xlarge | 48 | 384 GB | 4x 7500 GB | 50 GBit/s |
| i3en.24xlarge | 96 | 768 GB | 8x 7500 GB | 100 GBit/s |
| m5d.4xlarge | 16 | 64 GB | 2x 300 GB | 10 GBit/s |
| i4i.8xlarge | 32 | 256 GB | 2x 3750 GB | 18.75 GBit/s |
| i4i.12xlarge | 48 | 384 GB | 3x 3750 GB | 28.12 GBit/s |
Google Compute Engine Recommendations
In GCP, physical hosts are highly-shared and sliced into virtual machines. This isn't only true for network CPU, RAM, and network bandwidth, but also virtualized NVMe devices. Google Compute Engine NVMe devices provide a specific number of queue pairs (logical connections between the virtual machine and physical NVMe device) depending on the size of the disk. Hence, separately attached NVMe devices are highly recommended to achieve the required number of queue pairs of simplyblock.
Critical
If local NVMe devices are chosen, make sure that the nodes in the cluster are provisioned into a placement group of type Spread!
Generally, with GCP, there are three considerations when selecting virtual machine types:
- Minimum requirements of vCPU and RAM
- The size of the locally attached NVMe devices (SSD Storage)
- Network performance
Based on those criteria, simplyblock commonly recommends the following virtual machine types for storage nodes:
| VM Type | vCPU(s) | RAM | Additional Local SSD Storage | Network Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| n2-standard-8 | 8 | 32 GB | 2x 2500 GB | 16 GBit/s |
| n2-standard-16 | 16 | 64 GB | 2x 2500 GB | 32 GBit/s |
| n2-standard-32 | 32 | 128 GB | 4x 2500 GB | 32 GBit/s |
| n2-standard-48 | 48 | 192 GB | 4x 2500 GB | 50 GBit/s |
| n2-standard-48 | 48 | 192 GB | 4x 2500 GB | 50 GBit/s |
| n2-standard-64 | 64 | 256 GB | 6x 2500 GB | 75 GBit/s |
| n2-standard-80 | 64 | 320 GB | 8x 2500 GB | 100 GBit/s |
Attaching an additional Local SSD on Google Compute Engine
The above recommended instance types do not provide NVMe storage by default. It has to specifically be added to the virtual machine at creation time. It cannot be changed after the virtual machine is created.
To add additional Local SSD Storage to a virtual machine, the operating system section must be selected in the wizard, then "Add local SSD" must be clicked. Now an additional disk can be added.
Warning
It is important that NVMe is selected as the interface type. SCSI will not work!
