SCC instance families

Background information

Before you read further in this topic, you must be familiar with the following information:

• Classification and naming of instance types. Familiarize yourself with the instance family categories, naming conventions of instance types, and differences between instance families. For more information, see Classification and naming of instance types.

• Instance type metrics. For information about the metrics of instance types, see Instance type metrics. You can also call the DescribeInstanceTypeFamilies and DescribeInstanceTypes operations to query the instance families provided by ECS and the details of all instance types.

• Instructions for selecting instance types based on your business scenarios. For more information, see Instance type selection.

After you determine an instance type for your use case, you may need to learn about the following information:

• Regions in which the instance type is available for purchase. Instance types that are available for purchase vary based on the region. You can go to the Instance Types Available for Each Region page to view the instance types available for purchase in each region. Alternatively, you can call the DescribeRegions and DescribeZones operations to query the supported regions and the zones in a specific region.

• Estimated instance costs. You can calculate the price of instances that uses different billing methods in the Price Calculator. You can also call the DescribePrice operation to query information about the most recent prices of ECS resources.

• Instructions for purchasing an instance. You can go to the ECS instance buy page to place a purchase order for instances.

You may be concerned about the following information:

• Retired instance families. If you cannot find an instance type in this topic, the instance type may be in a retired instance family. For information about retired instance families, see Retired instance types.

• Supported instance type changes. Before you change the instance type of an instance, check whether the instance type can be changed and identify compatible instance types. For more information, see Instance types and families that support instance type changes.

Introduction

SCC is based on ECS Bare Metal Instance and uses high-speed Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) based interconnections to significantly improve the network performance and acceleration ratio of large-scale clusters. SCC has all the benefits of ECS Bare Metal Instance and provides high-bandwidth, low-latency networks.

SCC is used in scenarios such as high-performance computing (HPC), AI, machine learning, scientific and engineering computing, data analytics, and audio and video processing. In a cluster, nodes are connected through high-throughput, low-latency RDMA networks to serve high-concurrency workloads of applications, such as HPC and AI applications. RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) networks rival InfiniBand networks in terms of connection speed and can support more Ethernet-based applications.

SCC can work with other Alibaba Cloud computing services, such as ECS and Elastic GPU Service, to provide ultra-high-performance parallel computing resources for Elastic High Performance Computing (E-HPC), making cloud-based super computing possible.

HPC optimized instance families contain the following:

• scchfc6, compute-optimized SCC instance family with high clock speeds

• scchfg6, general-purpose SCC instance family with high clock speeds

• scchfr6, memory-optimized SCC instance family with high clock speeds

• scch5, SCC instance family with high clock speeds

Comparison of SCCs, physical machines, and virtual machines

The following table compares the features of SCCs, physical machines, and virtual machines. In the table, Y indicates that the feature is supported, N indicates that the feature is not supported, and N/A indicates that the feature is not applicable.

scchfc6, compute-optimized SCC instance family with high clock speeds

To use it, submit a ticket.

scchfg6, general-purpose SCC instance family with high clock speeds

To use it, submit a ticket.

scchfr6, memory-optimized SCC instance family with high clock speeds

To use it, submit a ticket.

scch5, SCC instance family with high clock speeds

Billing methods

SCCs support the pay-as-you-go and subscription billing methods. For more information, see Overview of billing methods.