CMP325 talk for AWS re:Invent 2017, by Brendan Gregg. "

At Netflix we make the best use of AWS EC2 instance types and features to create a high performance cloud, achieving near bare metal speed for our workloads. This session will summarize the configuration, tuning, and activities for delivering the fastest possible EC2 instances, and will help other EC2 users improve performance, reduce latency outliers, and make better use of EC2 features. We'll show how we choose EC2 instance types, how we choose between EC2 Xen modes: HVM, PV, and PVHVM, and the importance of EC2 features such SR-IOV for bare-metal performance. SR-IOV is used by EC2 enhanced networking, and recently for the new i3 instance type for enhanced disk performance as well. We'll also cover kernel tuning and observability tools, from basic to advanced. Advanced performance analysis includes the use of Java and Node.js flame graphs, and the new EC2 Performance Monitoring Counter (PMC) feature released this year."