The x2iedn.16xlarge is a memory-optimized AWS EC2 instance: 64 vCPU and 2048 GiB of memory, 32.00 GiB per vCPU. In the name, "x" is the extra-memory line, "2" is the generation, "iedn" marks Intel processors, extended capacity, local NVMe storage and enhanced networking and "16xlarge" is the size within the x2iedn family. It runs on Intel Xeon Scalable (Icelake) at 3.5 GHz, and AWS introduced it in March 2022. AWS has since shipped x8i; x8i.16xlarge is the direct replacement at this size, scoring 1,603,206 CoreMark/s against this instance's 1,082,910 — roughly 48% more throughput for the same vCPU count. No single Spot node covers 64 vCPU and 2048 GiB, so the equivalent is a fleet: 15 × mh.vs1.2xlarge, 240 vCPU and 1920 GiB in total, $13.34/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.315/hr on Rackspace Spot. Spot delivers compute as managed Kubernetes, so a node pool of that size is the native shape of the answer rather than a workaround — provided the workload scales horizontally.
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x2iedn.16xlarge gives you 64 vCPU and 2,048 GiB in a single machine. The largest comparable Spot node, mh.vs1.2xlarge, is 16 vCPU and 128 GiB, so the equivalent here is 15 nodes rather than one.
Spot runs as managed Kubernetes, so a 15-node pool is the normal way to run things rather than a workaround. If your workload already sits behind a load balancer, a queue or a scheduler, it spreads across them without changes. If it needs all 64 cores and 2,048 GiB in one process, it does not.
No local diskx2iedn.16xlarge comes with 1 × 1,900 GB NVMe SSD attached to the machine. Spot nodes use network storage only, so that disk doesn't come with it. If you were using it as fast scratch space, you'd move to a persistent volume or object storage, which are slower to read.
