Networking with EC2

▶ You can attach 3 different types of virtual networking cards to your EC2 instances.

- ENI (Elastic Network Interface)

  - For basic, day-to-day networking

- EN (Enhanced Networking)

  - Uses Single Root I/O virtualization(SR-IOV) to provide high performance

- EFA (Elastic Fabric Adapter)

  - Accelerates High Performance Computing (HPC) and machine learning applications

 

▶ ENI

- An ENI is simply a virtual network card that allows:

- Private IPv4 addresses

- Public IPv4 Addresses

- Many IPv6 Addresses

- MAC Address

- 1 or More Security Groups

▶ Common ENI Use Cases

- Create a management network

- Use network and security appliances in your VPC.

- Create dual-homed instances with workloads/roles on distinct subnets.

- Create a low-budget, high-availability solution.

 

▶ What is Enhanced Networking?

For High-Performance Networking between 10 Gbps - 100 Gbps

- Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)

  - SR-IOV provides higher I/O performance and lower CPU Utilization

Performance

- Provides higher bandwidth, higher packet per second (PPS) performance, and consistently lower inter-instance latencies.

 

▶ ENA vs. VF

Depending on your instance type, enhanced networking can be enabled using:

① ELASTIC NETWORK ADAPTER (ENA)

  - Supports network speeds of up to 100 Gbps for supported instance types.

② INTEL 82599 VIRTUAL FUNCTION (VF) INTERFACE

  - Supports network speeds of up to 10 Gbps for supported instance types.

  - Typicall used on older instances. 

 

▶ EFA - What Is an EFA(Elastic Fabric Adapter)?

√  A network device you can attach to your Amazon EC2 instance to accelerate High Performance Computing(HPC) and machine learning applications.

√  Provides lower and more consistent latency and higher throughput than the TCP transport traditionally used in cloud-based HPC systems.

 

▶ For different scenarios on the exam, choose the correct networking device.

① ENI

For basic networking. Perhaps you need a separate management network from your production network or a separate logging network, and you need to do this at a low cost. In this scenario, use multiple ENIs for each network.

② Enhanced Networking

For when you need speeds between 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps. Anywhere you need reliable, high throughput.

③ EFA

For when you need to accelearate High Performance Computing (HPC) and machine learning applications or if you need to do an OS-bypass. If you see a scenario question mentioning HPC or ML and asking what network adapter you want, choose EFA.