Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) offer an ever-expanding array of instance types, ensuring that for any given workload there exists the perfect hosting option that matches the exact needs of that app or business service. But with this expansion comes an ever-increasing challenge to match the workloads to the offerings–there are many things to consider:

• Capacity: Total CPU, Memory, and I/O resources needed
• Ratio of resources: CPU optimized? Memory optimized?
• Workload pattern: Burstable? Horizontal elasticity?
• Storage: Local disk? EBR? NVMe?
• Hypervisor: Compatibility between generations
• Regional availability
• Volume commitments

Intel Cloud Optimizer (ICO) is designed to consider these factors and more, analyzing workloads against the provider offerings in detail to find the optimal hosting option. This eliminates resource risk, keeps instances on the latest offerings, avoids stranded capacity that causes unnecessary cost, and optimizes the price/performance for an organization’s full set of workloads. The precision and depth of ICO means that the recommendations generated are actionable and can be automated when an organization is ready.

In collaboration with Intel, we are the first Cloud Resource Management Platform provider to improve our recommendations by linking the workloads to built-in CPU features and capabilities. Intel has released an alpha version of the Intel Optimization Hub (OH), which catalogs precisely how specific workloads, running in specific providers (or containers), can be optimized using Intel hardware, software, and engineering expertise in tuning.

This includes several types of optimizations:

• Hardware Accelerators: linking specific workloads to specific hardware acceleration or security features, such as QuickAssist®, Advanced Vector Extensions, Software Guard Extensions, etc.
• Software Builds: identifying cases where software builds exist for a software component that are optimized for specific infrastructure/processors (which are often what the workloads are already running on!)
• Open Source: identifying plug-compatible libraries and drivers that can be “dropped in” to provide immediate performance, efficiency, or security benefits
• Recipes: documenting the optimal configurations for application components to operate on specific CSP offerings, including Terraform templates and standard configs
• Benchmarks: capturing software components that have been benchmarked for certain platforms, providing transparency and predictability for key workloads

The combination of Intel Cloud Optimizer and the new Intel Optimization Hub not only ensures that efficient and appropriate cloud instances are selected for each workload but will actually take infrastructure matching to the next level and ensure that those workloads are optimally extracting every ounce of value from those instances. Intel spends billions on developing advanced hardware and software features that will benefit specific workloads and has global teams working with customers to help them optimally leverage these innovations, and the combination of ICO + OH now unlocks this for every workload in every organization.

Interested in knowing what ICO + OH can do for your cloud environment? Learn more about Intel Cloud Optimizer.