Reduce boot time of Linux EC2 instances

Question

Hi

Is there a way to reduce EC2 instance boot times? I have tight time constraint where I have to boot the EC2 and run a piece of software on in 25 seconds or less, or the platform kills my function, resulting in a chain of other failures (it's a Bitbucket pipeline: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Forge-for-Bitbucket-Cloud/Dynamicly-launched-self-hosted-runners/m-p/3006963#M183 ).

Bare AMIs take between 16-20 seconds to start, and I wonder if there's anything at all that I could do to reduce that time to, say, 10 seconds.

Hoan Pham · Answer

I think you can create your own customized AMI with pre-installed software.

re:Post Agent · Answer

There are a few strategies you can consider to reduce the boot time of Linux EC2 instances:

1. Use Amazon Linux 2: Recent versions of Amazon Linux 2 have implemented improvements to reduce instance launch time. For example, the 2.0.20201111.0 release included changes that have a measurable effect in reducing EC2 instance launch time.

2. Optimize your AMI: Create a custom AMI with only the necessary packages and configurations pre-installed. Remove any unnecessary services or startup processes that might slow down the boot process.

3. Consider using warm pools: Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling warm pools can help decrease latency for applications with long boot times. Warm pools maintain a pool of pre-initialized EC2 instances that can quickly start serving application traffic during a scale-out event.

4. Use instance types optimized for fast boot: Some instance types may boot faster than others. You could experiment with different instance types to find the one that boots fastest for your specific use case.

5. Utilize hibernation: If your workload allows, you can hibernate instances and resume them quickly when needed. This can be faster than a full boot process.

6. Optimize your software stack: Ensure that your application and any required services are optimized for quick startup. This might involve techniques like lazy loading or asynchronous initialization of non-critical components.

7. Use EBS-optimized instances: These instances can provide dedicated throughput to Amazon EBS, which might help speed up the boot process if your instance relies heavily on EBS volumes.

While these strategies can help reduce boot time, achieving a 10-second boot time for a full EC2 instance may be challenging. You might need to explore alternative architectures or solutions, such as using containerization or serverless technologies, which can have faster startup times compared to full EC2 instances.  
**Sources**  
[Amazon Linux 2 version 2.0.20201111.0 release notes - Amazon Linux 2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AL2/latest/relnotes/relnotes-20201111.html)  
[Decrease latency for applications with long boot times using warm pools - Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/ec2/userguide/ec2-auto-scaling-warm-pools.html)  
[Amazon Linux 1 (AL1) version 2016.09 release notes - Amazon Linux 1](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/linux/al1/ug/relnotes-2016.09.html)

Reduce boot time of Linux EC2 instances

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