What is EC2 Enhanced Networking?

SR-IOV

Enhanced networking uses single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) to provide high-performance networking capabilities on supported instance types.

SR-IOV is a method of device virtualization that provides higher I/O performance and lower CPU utilization when compared to traditional virtualized network interfaces.

Enhanced networking provides higher bandwidth, higher packet per second (PPS) performance, and consistently lower inter-instance latencies. There is no additional charge for using enhanced networking.

You can enable enhanced networking using one of the following mechanisms:

Elastic Network Adapter (ENA)

The Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) supports network speeds of up to 100 Gbps for supported instance types.

The current generation instances use ENA for enhanced networking, except for C4, D2, and M4 instances smaller than m4.16xlarge.

Enabling enhanced networking with the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) on Linux instances

Amazon EC2 provides enhanced networking capabilities through the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA). To use enhanced networking, you must install the required ENA module and enable ENA support.

• Ensure that the instance has internet connectivity.
• Install and configure the AWS CLI or the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on any computer you choose, preferably your local desktop or laptop. For more information, see Accessing Amazon EC2. Enhanced networking cannot be managed from the Amazon EC2 console.
• If you have important data on the instance that you want to preserve, you should back that data up now by creating an AMI from your instance. Updating kernels and kernel modules, as well as enabling the enaSupport attribute, might render incompatible instances or operating systems unreachable. If you have a recent backup, your data will still be retained if this happens.

Intel 82599 Virtual Function (VF) interface

The Intel 82599 Virtual Function interface supports network speeds of up to 10 Gbps for supported instance types.

The following instance types use the Intel 82599 VF interface for enhanced networking: C3, C4, D2, I2, M4 (excluding m4.16xlarge), and R3

Instance attribute (enaSupport)

To check whether an instance has the enhanced networking enaSupport attribute set, use one of the following commands. If the attribute is set, the response is true.

• describe-instances (AWS CLI)
• Get-EC2Instance (Tools for Windows PowerShell)

Image attribute (enaSupport)

To check whether an AMI has the enhanced networking enaSupport attribute set, use one of the following commands. If the attribute is set, the response is true.

• describe-images (AWS CLI)
• Get-EC2Image (Tools for Windows PowerShell