Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a memory-intensive instance of its EC2 cloud service designed to let users clusters tailored for applications such as SAP’s HANA in-memory analytics platform.

AWS’s High Memory Cluster will target firms looking to use cloud-based services for memory-intensive applications such as heavy duty number crunching. AWS said it expected to generate interest among firms at the vanguard of big data projects.

“Memory-intensive workloads such as real-time applications used by healthcare providers, social networking companies and advertising technology providers require large amounts of memory to maintain high-performance,” said Peter DeSantis, vice president of compute services, at AWS.

“We designed the High Memory Cluster instances specifically for these workloads.”

ASW High Memory Cluster instances are based on two Intel Xeon E5-2670 processors which provide 88 EC2 Compute Units of compute capacity, two 120GB solid state drives of instance storage, high bandwidth networking, and 244 GiB (262GB) of RAM.

AWS claimed it would provide customers with the most cost-effective method of buying instances with large memory allocations.

The High Memory Clusters are initially only available to customers using AWS’s US East Region, via its on-demand, spot market or reservation system. AWS expects to make the service available in other regions in the coming months.

High Memory Clusters are available for customers want both Linux and Windows-based instances, via the AWS Management Console, command line interfaces and third-party libraries.

AWS has been expanding the capabilities of its cloud services of late, increasingly focussing on delivering high-end offerings. Late last year it announced it would launch its Redshift platform, offering data warehousing capabilities in the cloud.

But while AWS is hoping to lure firms into using its infrastructure for business-critical systems, it has also been left red-faced by services outages.

A problem with its Elastic Load Balancing resulted in major web firms, including Netflix, being left without service just before Christmas.