EFA - Improved ENA, for linux only. Bypasses the linux OS for low latency. 🤷
if your CPU is not powerful enough, it can directly limit your network performance
Uses single root I/O virtualization to provided high performance networking in select instances and lower cpu utilization.
ENA - Higher PPS, and bandwidth
ENA supports up-to 10gbps
All nitro based instances uses ENA for enhanced networking
These Xen based instances uses ENA: H1, I3, G3, m4.16xlarge, P2, P3, P3dn, and R4
Consider using enhanced networking for the following scenarios
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If your packets-per-second rate reaches its ceiling, consider moving to enhanced networking. If your rate reaches its ceiling, you’ve likely reached the upper thresholds of the virtual network interface driver.
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If your throughput is near or exceeding 20K packets per second (PPS) on the VIF driver, it’s a best practice to use enhanced networking.
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Up to 25 Gbps: Use ENA-compatible instances in a cluster placement group.
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Up to 10 Gbps: Use enhanced networking instances in a cluster placement group.
- ENA-compatible instances use ENA, which supports speeds up to 100 Gbps.
- Enhanced networking can also mean Intel VF (Virtio), which supports up to 10 Gbps.