icon picker
Placement Groups

Placement groups in AWS provide a way to logically group instances to meet specific application requirements, such as low latency, high throughput, or isolation. Here's an overview of the three types of placement groups available:
Cluster Placement Group:
Description: Groups instances into a single Availability Zone (AZ) to achieve low-latency communication and high network throughput.
Use Cases: Ideal for applications with high inter-instance communication requirements, such as HPC (High-Performance Computing) and distributed data analysis.
Recommendation: Suitable when most network traffic is between instances within the group.
Advantages: Low latency, high throughput within the placement group.
image.png

Partition Placement Group:
Description: Divides instances into logical segments called partitions, with each partition having its own set of racks, network, and power sources.
Use Cases: Designed for large distributed and replicated workloads, such as HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System), HBase, and Cassandra.
Recommendation: Deploying distributed and replicated workloads across distinct racks.
Advantages: Isolation of hardware failures within the application, enhanced fault tolerance for distributed workloads.
image.png

Spread Placement Group:
Description: Spreads instances across distinct underlying hardware to minimize the impact of hardware failures.
Use Cases: Suitable for critical applications where instances need to be kept separate to enhance fault tolerance.
Recommendation: Used when a small number of critical instances should be isolated from each other.
Advantages: Enhanced fault tolerance, isolation of critical instances.
image.png
image.png
Differences between clustered and spread placement groups
Column 1
Clustered
Partition
Spread
1
What
Instances are placed into a low-latency group within a single AZ
Instances are grouped into logical segments called partitions which use distinct hardware
Instances are spread across underlying hardware
2
When
Need low network latency and/or high network throughput
Need control and visibility into instance placement
Reduce the risk of simultaneous instance failure if underlying hardware fails
3
Pros
Get the most out of enhanced networking Instances
Reduces likelihood of correlated failures for large workloads.
Can span multiple AZs
4
Cons
Finite capacity: recommend launching all you might need up front
Partition placement groups are not supported for Dedicated Hosts
Maximum of 7 instances running per group, per AZ
There are no rows in this table

Spread Placement Groups: Enhancing Fault Tolerance and Performance

Spread placement groups in AWS offer a way to distribute instances across separate underlying hardware, minimizing the risk of simultaneous failures and enhancing performance for latency-sensitive applications. Here's a closer look at the key aspects and recommendations for using spread placement groups effectively:
Risk Reduction: By spreading instances across distinct hardware, spread placement groups mitigate the risk of simultaneous failures that might occur when instances share the same underlying hardware.
Low Latency, High Bandwidth: Spread placement groups are recommended for applications that benefit from low latency and high bandwidth, such as real-time analytics and sensitive transactional systems.
Enhanced Networking: It's recommended to use instance types that support enhanced networking capabilities for optimal performance within spread placement groups.
Communication Modes: Instances within a spread placement group can communicate with each other using either private or public IP addresses.
Performance Considerations:
Private IP Addresses: Best performance is achieved when instances communicate using private IP addresses within the VPC.
Public IP Addresses: Using public IP addresses may limit performance to 5 Gbps or less due to potential network constraints.
Network Speed: Spread placement groups offer low-latency network connectivity with speeds of 10 Gbps or 25 Gbps, enabling high-speed data transfer between instances.
Homogeneous Instance Types: It's recommended to keep instance types homogeneous within a spread placement group to ensure consistent performance characteristics and simplify management.
Reserved Instances: While you can use reserved instances at the instance level, it's important to note that you cannot reserve capacity explicitly for a placement group. Capacity reservations are typically at the Availability Zone level.
Naming and Unique Identifier: The name specified for a placement group must be unique within your AWS account for the region where it's created.
Limitations:
Merging: Placement groups cannot be merged, so plan your placement group strategy carefully.
Single Group: An instance can be launched in only one placement group at a time and cannot span multiple placement groups.
Tenancy: Instances with a tenancy of "host" cannot be launched in placement groups.
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.