Compute Engine’s compute-optimized machine family

High performance computing (HPC) workloads and compute-intensive tasks are best suited for instances of compute-optimized virtual machines (VMs). With their architecture that makes use of characteristics like non-uniform memory access (NUMA) for optimal, dependable, consistent performance, compute-optimized virtual machines (VMs) provide the best performance per core.

This family of machines includes the following machine series:

Two 4th-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, code-named Sapphire Rapids, with an all-core frequency of 3.0 GHz power H3 virtual machines. 88 virtual cores (vCPUs) and 352 GB of DDR5 memory are features of H3 virtual machines.

The third generation AMD EPYC Milan CPU, which has a maximum boost frequency of 3.5 GHz, powers C2D virtual machines. Flexible scaling between 2 and 112 virtual CPUs and 2 to 8 GB of RAM per vCPU are features of C2D virtual machines.

The 2nd-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor (Cascade Lake), which has a sustained single-core maximum turbo frequency of 3.9 GHz, powers C2 virtual machines. C2 provides virtual machines (VMs) with 4–60 vCPUs and 4 GB of memory per vCPU.

H3 machine series

The 4th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids), DDR5 memory, and Titanium offload processors power the H3 machine series and H3 virtual machines.

For applications involving compute-intensive high performance computing (HPC) in Compute Engine, H3 virtual machines (VMs) provide the highest pricing performance. The single-threaded H3 virtual machines (VMs) are perfect for a wide range of modeling and simulation tasks, such as financial modeling, genomics, crash safety, computational fluid dynamics, and general scientific and engineering computing. Compact placement, which is ideal for closely connected applications that grow over several nodes, is supported by H3 virtual machines.

There is only one size for the H3 series, which includes a whole host server. You can change the amount of visible cores to reduce licensing fees, but the VM still costs the same. H3 virtual machines (VMs) have a default network bandwidth rate of up to 200 Gbps and are able to utilize the full host network capacity. However, there is a 1 Gbps limit on the VM to internet bandwidth.

H3 virtual machines are unable to allow simultaneous multithreading (SMT). To guarantee optimal performance constancy, there is also no overcommitment.

H3 virtual machines can be purchased on-demand or with committed use discounts (CUDs) for one or three years. Google Kubernetes Engine can be utilized with H3 virtual machines.

H3 VMs Limitations

The following are the limitations of the H3 machine series:

Only a certain machine type is offered by the H3 machine series. No custom machine shapes are available.

GPUs cannot be used with H3 virtual machines.

There is a 1 Gbps limit on outgoing data transfer.

The performance limits for Google Cloud Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk are 240 MBps throughput and 15,000 IOPS.

Machine images are not supported by H3 virtual machines.

The NVMe storage interface is the only one supported by H3 virtual machines.

Disks cannot be created from H3 VM images.

Read-only or multi-writer disk sharing is not supported by H3 virtual machines.

Different types of H3 machines

Machine typesvCPUs*Memory (GB)Max network egress bandwidth†h3-standard-8888352Up to 200 Gbps

With no simultaneous multithreading (SMT), a vCPU represents a whole core. † The default egress bandwidth is limited to the specified value. The destination IP address and several variables determine the actual egress bandwidth. Refer to the network bandwidth.

Supported disk types for H3

The following block storage types are compatible with H3 virtual machines:

Balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)

Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)

Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)

Capacity and disk limitations

With a virtual machine, you can employ a combination of persistent disk and hyperdisk volumes, however there are some limitations:

Each virtual machine can have no more than 128 hyperdisk and persistent disk volumes combined.

All disk types’ combined maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) cannot be greater than:

Regarding computer types with fewer than 32 virtual CPUs:

257 TiB for all Hyperdisk or all Persistent Disk

257 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk

For computer types that include 32 or more virtual central processors:

512 TiB for all Hyperdisk

512 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk

257 TiB for all Persistent Disk

H3 storage limits are described in the following table: Maximum number of disks per VMMachine typesAll disk types All Hyperdisk typesHyperdisk BalancedHyperdisk ThroughputHyperdisk ExtremeLocal SSDh3-standard-88128648640Not supported

Network compatibility for H3 virtual machines

gVNIC network interfaces are needed for H3 virtual machines. For typical networking, H3 allows up to 200 Gbps of network capacity.

Make sure the operating system image you use is fully compatible with H3 before moving to H3 or setting up H3 virtual machines. Even though the guest OS displays the gve driver version as 1.0.0, fully supported images come with the most recent version of the gVNIC driver. The VM may not be able to reach the maximum network bandwidth for H3 VMs if it is running an operating system with limited support, which includes an outdated version of the gVNIC driver.

The most recent gVNIC driver can be manually installed if you use a custom OS image with the H3 machine series. For H3 virtual machines, the gVNIC driver version v1.3.0 or later is advised. To take advantage of more features and bug improvements, Google advises using the most recent version of the gVNIC driver.