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title: Selecting an AWS Instance Type and Size
collection: tableau
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locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/tableau/next/en-us/server/ts_aws_virtual_machine_selection.md
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description: Deployments on public clouds continue to be supported but the content for third-party public cloud deployments is no longer updated
---
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# Selecting an AWS Instance Type and Size

## This is archived content

Deployments on public clouds continue to be supported but the content for third-party public cloud deployments is no longer updated.

For the latest Tableau Server deployment content, see the [Deploy](https://help.tableau.com/current/server/en-us/install.htm) section of Tableau Server help.

For those customers who have access, we recommend Tableau Cloud. For more details, see:

- [Tableau Cloud Manual Migration Guide](https://help.tableau.com/current/guides/migration/en-us/emg_intro.htm)
- [Tableau Cloud Trial for Admin](https://help.tableau.com/current/server-linux/en-us/install.htm)
- [Tableau Cloud: Get Started for Admin](https://www.tableau.com/learn/get-started/online-admin)

## 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](https://aws.amazon.com/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](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/physicalcores/) 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](https://www.tableau.com/learn/whitepapers/tableau-speed-of-aws-ec2).

### Recommended specifications for a single production instance

<table style="max-width: 100%;" class="simple-table">
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                    <col class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-Column-Column1" style="width: 20%;">
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                                        </colgroup><tbody>
                        <tr>
                            <th>Component/Resource</th>
                            <th colspan="10">Amazon Web Services</th>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                <p>CPU</p>
                            </td>
                            <td colspan="10">
                                <p>16+ vCPU</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                <p>Operating System</p>
                            </td>
                            <td colspan="10">
                                <div>
                                    <table style="width: 100%;mc-table-style: url('Resources/TableStyles/Basic-Border-Light.css');" class="TableStyle-Basic-Border" cellspacing="0">
                                        <thead>
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                                                <th class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-HeadE-Column1-Header1">&nbsp;</th>
                                                <th class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-HeadE-Column1-Header1" style="text-align: center;">2021.3.0 - 2023.3.0</th>
                                                <th class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-HeadD-Column1-Header1" style="text-align: center;">2023.3.1 - 2026.2.x</th>
                                            </tr>
                                        </thead>
                                        <tbody>
                                            <tr class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-Body-Body1">
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyE-Column1-Body1">Windows Server 2016</td>
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyE-Column1-Body1" style="text-align: center;">
                                                    <img src="https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/Img/greencheckmark.png" alt="">
                                                </td>
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyD-Column1-Body1" style="text-align: center;">
                                                    <img src="https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/Img/greencheckmark.png" alt="">
                                                </td>
                                            </tr>
                                            <tr class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-Body-Body1">
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyE-Column1-Body1">Windows Server 2019 (x64)</td>
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyE-Column1-Body1" style="text-align: center;">
                                                    <img src="https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/Img/greencheckmark.png" alt="">
                                                </td>
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyD-Column1-Body1" style="text-align: center;">
                                                    <img src="https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/Img/greencheckmark.png" alt="">
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                                            </tr>
                                            <tr class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-Body-Body1">
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyB-Column1-Body1">Windows Server 2022</td>
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyB-Column1-Body1" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Note:</strong>&nbsp;Windows Server 2022 is <em>not </em>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.
</td>
                                                <td class="TableStyle-Basic-Border-BodyA-Column1-Body1" style="text-align: center;">
                                                    <img src="https://help.tableau.com/v0.0/server/en-us/Img/greencheckmark.png" alt="">
                                                </td>
                                            </tr>
                                        </tbody>
                                    </table>
                                </div>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                <p>Memory</p>
                            </td>
                            <td colspan="10">
                                <p>128+ GB RAM (4GB RAM per vCPU)</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                <p>Storage</p>
                            </td>
                            <td colspan="10">
                                <p>Two volumes:</p>
                                <p>30-50 GiB volume for the operating system</p>
                                <p>100 GiB or larger volume for Tableau Server</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                <p>Storage type</p>
                            </td>
                            <td colspan="10">
                                <p>EBS recommended (SSD (gp2) or Provisioned IOPS)</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                <p>Disk latency</p>
                            </td>
                            <td colspan="10">
                                <p>Less than or equal to 20ms as measured by the <b>Avg. Transfer disk/sec</b> Performance Counter in Windows.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                    </tbody>
                </table>