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Deployments on public clouds continue to be supported but the content for third-party public cloud deployments is no longer updated.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 Enterprise Deployment Guide(Link opens in a new window) and the Deploy(Link opens in a new window) section of Tableau Server help.
For those customers who have access, we recommend Tableau Cloud. For more details, see:
- Tableau Cloud Manual Migration Guide
- Tableau Cloud Trial for Admin(Link opens in a new window)
- Tableau Cloud: Get Started for Admin(Link opens in a new window)
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(Link opens in a new window) 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
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C5.4xlarge (suitable for development environments only)
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m5.4xlarge (suitable for development or testing environments only)
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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(Link opens in a new window).
Recommended specifications for a single production instance
| Component/Resource | Amazon Web Services | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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CPU |
16+ vCPU |
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Operating System |
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Memory |
128+ GB RAM (4GB RAM per vCPU) |
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Storage |
Two volumes: 30-50 GiB volume for the operating system 100 GiB or larger volume for Tableau Server |
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Storage type |
EBS recommended (SSD (gp2) or Provisioned IOPS) |
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Disk latency |
Less than or equal to 20ms as measured by the Avg. Transfer disk/sec Performance Counter in Windows. |
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