Amazon EC2 Metal instances provide you with physical CPUs, not virtualized CPUs. Metal instances are not virtualized; they do not run under a hypervisor like non-Metal instances do. We do use the same "vCPU" terminology in our APIs and the EC2 Console even with Metal instances, but rest assured you will have full access to all CPU resources.
Just a point of clarity - EC2 Dedicated Hosts are different from Metal instances. EC2 Dedicated Hosts are intended to run multiple EC2 instances on the same physical machine; you allocate a Dedicated Host and then can assign EC2 instances to that host. Dedicated Hosts are not EC2 instances themselves; you cannot run workloads on them or access them until you assign instances to them. Metal instances, on the other hand, are EC2 instances mapped to entire physical hosts that cannot be subdivided into multiple EC2 instances. (You can even run your own hypervisor on Metal instances if you like, which is something you cannot do with non-Metal instances.) Answer from MichaelFischer on repost.aws
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2023 › 10 › new-amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances
Introducing eight new Amazon EC2 bare metal instances - AWS
October 30, 2023 - Starting today, Amazon EC2 C7i, M7i, R7i and R7iz bare metal instances are available. Amazon EC2 M7i, C7i, and R7i instances are powered by custom 4th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, —available only on AWS — which offer up to 15% better performance over comparable x86-based Intel ...
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Amazon EC2 Metal instances provide you with physical CPUs, not virtualized CPUs. Metal instances are not virtualized; they do not run under a hypervisor like non-Metal instances do. We do use the same "vCPU" terminology in our APIs and the EC2 Console even with Metal instances, but rest assured you will have full access to all CPU resources.
Just a point of clarity - EC2 Dedicated Hosts are different from Metal instances. EC2 Dedicated Hosts are intended to run multiple EC2 instances on the same physical machine; you allocate a Dedicated Host and then can assign EC2 instances to that host. Dedicated Hosts are not EC2 instances themselves; you cannot run workloads on them or access them until you assign instances to them. Metal instances, on the other hand, are EC2 instances mapped to entire physical hosts that cannot be subdivided into multiple EC2 instances. (You can even run your own hypervisor on Metal instances if you like, which is something you cannot do with non-Metal instances.)
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Hello,
I think that you want to read https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/security-design-of-aws-nitro-system/the-components-of-the-nitro-system.html especially the "Nitro hypervisor" section to understand why AWS still speaks of vCPU with bare metal instances.
If you are not familiar with Nitro, you may want to start here: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/nitro/
Best,
Didier
Videos
AWS
aws.amazon.com › blogs › aws › new-amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances-with-direct-access-to-hardware
Amazon EC2 Bare Metal Instances with Direct Access to Hardware | AWS News Blog
November 3, 2022 - This work, as I described in Now Available – Compute-Intensive C5 Instances for Amazon EC2, includes a set of dedicated hardware accelerators. Now that we have provided VMware with the bare metal access that they requested, we are doing the same for all AWS customers.
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2019 › 02 › introducing-five-new-amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances
Introducing Five New Amazon EC2 Bare Metal Instances - AWS
October 6, 2019 - z1d.metal instances are available in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California and Oregon), Europe (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Singapore and Tokyo) AWS regions. These new Bare Metal instances can be purchased as On-Demand instances, Reserved instances (3-Yr, 1-Yr, and Convertible), or as Spot instances.
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2025 › 04 › amazon-ec2-i7ie-bare-metal-instances-sizes
Introducing two new Amazon EC2 I7ie bare metal instances sizes - AWS
They allow EC2 customers to run applications that benefit from deep performance analysis tools, specialized workloads that require direct access to bare metal infrastructure, legacy workloads incompatible with virtual environments, and licensing-restricted business critical applications. These instances feature three Intel accelerator technologies: Intel Data Streaming accelerator (DSA), Intel In-Memory Analytics Accelerator (IAA), and Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT).
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2021 › 11 › amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances
Introducing two new Amazon EC2 bare metal instances
September 10, 2025 - Virginia), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Paris), and South America (São Paulo). C6i metal instances are available in the following AWS Regions: US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland). These new bare metal instances can be purchased as Savings Plans, Reserved, On-Demand, and Spot instances.
AWS
aws.amazon.com › blogs › aws › category › compute › amazon-ec2-bare-metal
Amazon EC2 Bare Metal | AWS News Blog
In August, we introduced the general-purpose Amazon EC2 M6i instances powered by the latest generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Ice Lake) with an all-core turbo frequency of 3.5 GHz. Compute-optimized EC2 C6i instances were also made available last month.
AWS
aws.amazon.com › blogs › database › getting-started-with-amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances-for-amazon-rds-for-oracle-and-amazon-rds-custom-for-oracle
Getting started with Amazon EC2 bare metal instances for Amazon RDS for Oracle and Amazon RDS Custom for Oracle | AWS Database Blog
September 5, 2025 - In this post, we explore the support for AWS bare metal instances on Amazon EC2 bare metal Instances for Amazon RDS for Oracle and RDS Custom for Oracle.
AWS
aws.amazon.com › blogs › compute › category › compute › amazon-ec2-bare-metal
Amazon EC2 Bare Metal | AWS Compute Blog
This post courtesy of Siavash Irani, AWS Solutions Architect and Bryan Mareletto, AWS Technical Program Manager AWS recently announced the general availability of Amazon EC2 bare metal Instances. This post provides an overview of launching, setting up, and configuring a Hyper-V enabled host, ...
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2019 › 05 › amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances-are-now-available-in-additional-aws-regions
Amazon EC2 Bare Metal Instances are Now Available in Additional AWS Regions
R5d bare metal instances are now available in the US West (Oregon), Canada (Central), and Europe (Dublin and London) regions. Amazon EC2 bare metal instances provide your applications with direct access to the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor ...
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2022 › 04 › amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances
Introducing two new Amazon EC2 bare metal instances - AWS
C6a metal instances are available in the following AWS Regions: US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland). These new bare metal instances can be purchased as Savings Plans, Reserved, On-Demand, and Spot instances. To get started, visit the AWS Management Console, AWS ...
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2018 › 05 › announcing-general-availability-of-amazon-ec2-bare-metal-instances
Announcing General Availability of Amazon EC2 Bare Metal Instances
Bare metal instances were announced for preview at AWS re:Invent 2017, and are now generally available with the EC2 Storage Optimized I3 instance family in the form of i3.metal instances.
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2021 › 02 › introducing-amazon-ec2-m5n-m5dn-r5n-and-r5dn-bare-metal-instances
Introducing Amazon EC2 M5n, M5dn, R5n, and R5dn Bare Metal Instances - AWS
February 8, 2021 - Starting today, Amazon EC2 M5n, M5dn, R5n, and R5dn bare metal instances that can utilize up to 100 Gbps of network bandwidth, and Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for HPC/ML workloads are generally available. Amazon EC2 bare metal instances provide your applications with direct access to the Intel® ...
Google Sites
sites.google.com › site › mytechnicalcollection › cloud-computing › aws › ec2-bare-metal
Technical Collection - EC2 Bare Metal
You can request access to EC2 Bare Metal instances by completing our request form here. ... The below requirement is w.r.t. AMI generation ... The Amazon EC2 Compute-Intensive C5 instances are available in six sizes for launch in three AWS regions - US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), and EU (Ireland) Regions in On-Demand and Spot form (Reserved Instances are also available)
Nutanix
portal.nutanix.com › page › documents › details
Supported Regions and Bare-metal Instances
We cannot provide a description for this page right now
AWS
aws.amazon.com › blogs › aws › now-available-bare-metal-arm-based-ec2-instances
Now Available: Bare Metal Arm-Based EC2 Instances | AWS News Blog
November 3, 2022 - Just like for existing bare metal instances (M5, M5d, R5, R5d, z1d, and so forth), your operating system runs directly on the underlying hardware with direct access to the processor.
AWS
aws.amazon.com › about-aws › whats-new › 2019 › 08 › introducing-amazon-ec2-i3en-and-c5n-bare-metal-instances
Introducing Amazon EC2 I3en and C5n Bare Metal Instances - AWS
Starting today, Amazon EC2 I3en and C5n bare metal instances are generally available. Amazon EC2 bare metal instances provide your applications with direct access to the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor and memory resources of the underlying server.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › aws bare metal service - questions
r/aws on Reddit: AWS bare metal service - questions
December 28, 2022 -
Hi everyone! I've been trying to understand certain AWS features & pricing and would really appreciate insights based on your ezlerience.
What discounts normally apply for 1 and 3 year reservations respectively of EC2 or RDS storage capacity, if any? This concerns storage products such as gp2, gp3, io1, io2, st1, database magnetic and backup storage
What is the listing/discounted price for 1 and 3 years reservations of bare metal instances of types ls4gen and D3gen? In which availability zones are these services available?
There is a thin hypervisor layer on top of bare metal deployed by AWS. Generally speaking, do user space applications run on top of aws bare metal instances (specifically interested in intel spdk)?
Appreciate input on any of these!
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Have you used the cost explorer tool? Definitely worth a look as you’ll get more accurate answers to your specific needs than anyone here can give. It’s likely they’d need to use that tool for this anyway!
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1+2: You can look up your pricing questions 1&2 in the AWS pricing calculator. You can create an estimate and play around with the discounts of reservations. https://calculator.aws/#/ 3: Most workloads do not run on AWS Bare metal. It is an uncommon practice. It is reserved for specialized workloads that require direct access to hardware or legacy workloads. There is a huge shift towards abstraction away from bare metal starting with EC2, ECS Fargate running Containers, all the way up to software functions with Lambda. If you use a traditional approach to AWS and are looking to rent bare metal servers with reservations for up to 3 years, then you will find AWS to be a highly expensive option. AWS provides Cloud Computing. It provides on-demand capacity that you scale up and down seamlessly. Functionality is continually offered at a higher abstraction level that allows you to focus on business value instead of maintaining infrastructure. While infrastructure costs look higher at face value, the end result is lower total cost of value and faster time to market. I hope this insight helps you understand AWS. Because we might all look like idiots being hyped up over AWS without it seeing how largely expensive it can be.
TechTarget
techtarget.com › searchaws › tip › AWS-bare-metal-instances-target-a-niche-market-for-now
AWS bare-metal instances target a niche market -- for now | TechTarget
Bare-metal instances target legacy, nonvirtualized applications or other workloads that require direct access to system hardware. Amazon's biggest competitors, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, haven't adopted bare metal yet, but users who want direct access to server hardware as an on-demand service have other options, most notably from IBM and Oracle. Let's review some of the technical specs of these new AWS bare-metal instance types, compare them to other providers' options and delve into potential use cases for what could be a burgeoning market.
AWSInsider
awsinsider.net › articles › 2018 › 05 › 22 › aws-ec2-bare-metal-instances.aspx
AWS Releases EC2 Bare-Metal Instances -- AWSInsider
EC2 bare-metal instances are available via AWS' i3.metal instance family and are based on the cloud giant's years-long "Nitro system" effort, the aim of which AWS officials described at last year's re:Invent as "[making] the EC2 instance indistinguishable from bare metal."