Selecting an AWS Instance Type and Size

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Introduction

Choosing the right instance for your workload is an important factor for a successful Tableau Server deployment. You can choose from a wide range of Amazon EC2 instance types. For a complete list of all available instance types and sizes, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types at the AWS website.

At minimum, a 64-bit Tableau Server requires a 4-core CPU (the equivalent of 8 AWS vCPUs) and 64 GB RAM. However, a total of 8 CPU cores (16 AWS vCPUs) and 128 GB RAM are strongly recommended for a single production Amazon EC2 instance.

An AWS vCPU is a single hyperthread of a two-thread Intel Xeon core for M5, M4, C5, C4, R4, and R4 instances. A simple way to think about this is that an AWS vCPU is equal to half a physical core. Therefore, when choosing an Amazon EC2 instance size, you should double number of cores you have purchased or wish to deploy with. Example: You have purchased an 8 core license for Tableau Server (or need to support enough active users where 8 cores are warranted). You should choose an Amazon EC2 instance type with 16 vCPUs. For more information about how many vCPUs equal a physical core, see Physical Cores by Amazon EC2 and RDS DB Instance Type at the AWS website.

The Windows Operating system will recognize these 16 vCPU as 8 cores, so there is no negative licensing impact.

Typical instance types and sizes for development, test, and production environments

• C5.4xlarge (suitable for development environments only)

• m5.4xlarge (suitable for development or testing environments only)

• r5.4xlarge (suitable for development, testing, or production environments)

Note: Installing Tableau Server on Amazon EC2 T2 instances is not supported.

For a performance comparison of various Amazon EC2 instance types that have been tested with Tableau Server, see Tableau at the Speed of EC2.

Recommended specifications for a single production instance

Component/Resource	Amazon Web Services
CPU	16+ vCPU
Operating System	2021.3.0 - 2023.3.0 2023.3.1 - 2026.2.x Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2019 (x64) Windows Server 2022 Note: Windows Server 2022 is not supported in versions prior to 2023.3.1. Beginning in April 2023, installers for all versions of Tableau Server on Windows prior to 2023.3.1 block installation on Windows 2022.
Memory	128+ GB RAM (4GB RAM per vCPU)
Storage	Two volumes: 30-50 GiB volume for the operating system 100 GiB or larger volume for Tableau Server
Storage type	EBS recommended (SSD (gp2) or Provisioned IOPS)
Disk latency	Less than or equal to 20ms as measured by the Avg. Transfer disk/sec Performance Counter in Windows.