AWS Stops Accepting New 1U Outposts Customers
AWS offers second-generation Outposts in a 42U rack. The compact setup has fixed capacity limits and no local S3 storage.
This article is an AI-generated translation of the German original. The German version is authoritative.
On September 10, 2026, AWS made its second-generation Outposts available as a single 42U rack for general use. The service brings compute and block storage to customer premises. Amazon S3 remains unavailable on the rack itself. Customers exceeding these limits will need a new single-rack subscription.
Key Takeaways
- AWS is no longer onboarding new customers for 1U and 2U Outposts. The original server offering remains available only to existing customers.
- The single rack consolidates local capacity. AWS supports up to 2,688 vCPUs and 100 TB of Amazon EBS.
- The rack’s technical limit remains fixed. Exceeding this capacity requires a separate subscription.
Related:Amazon pays Qualcomm with orders and stock options / AWS removes private preview path to Azure again
What is AWS Outposts? Outposts is an AWS service that delivers hardware to customer premises. AWS manages the racks, while region APIs and the console control local instances and volumes. The home region remains the central cloud hub for the service.
The smallest new Outposts offering fills an entire rack
Since September 10, 2026, AWS has provided compute, storage, and networking in a single 42U rack. The hardware resides on-premises but is managed as an AWS service via the cloud console.
The documentation also confirms the discontinuation of sales for 1U and 2U Outposts servers. AWS is no longer accepting new customers for this original server tier. The FAQ clarifies that these servers are incompatible with the new 42U rack, pushing AWS’s smallest footprint toward a full rack deployment.
The 42U Rack Delivers Up to 2,688 vCPUs
A single rack provides up to 2,688 virtual processors and 100 terabytes of block storage, according to AWS. Block storage is used, for example, as a drive for virtual machines. The supported processor platform includes the x86 instance families M7i, M8i, C7i, C8i, R7i, and R8i.
AWS also states that the second generation incorporates the accelerated network instances Bmn-cx2 and Bmn-cx3a. The key technical specifications are outlined in the table below.
| Feature | Single-Rack Specification | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 42U | a full rack unit |
| Compute | up to 2,688 vCPUs | AWS’s stated upper limit |
| Block Storage | 100 TB Amazon EBS | local storage capacity |
| Power | 10 to 30 kVA | required electrical connection power |
| Uplinks | 10, 40, or 100 Gigabits per second | network connection to the customer network |
Source: AWS What’s New from September 10, 2026, and AWS Outposts FAQ from September 14, 2026.
A Second Rack Requires a New Subscription
The Outposts documentation explicitly excludes adding extra racks to a single-rack configuration. However, scaling up within the rack remains possible. If demand exceeds the capacity of this single rack, AWS outlines the need for a separate single-rack subscription.
Multi-rack setups, as described in the documentation, involve additional compute racks connected to a network rack. The single-rack setup limits the space requirement to one cabinet. The choice of form factor therefore determines future expansion.
Amazon S3 Is Not Available On-Premises
The Outposts documentation lists EC2, EBS, EKS, ECS, RDS, IoT Greengrass, and Application Load Balancer as supported services for the single rack. AWS does not offer its S3 object storage service locally in this configuration.
According to the FAQ, EBS snapshots are stored by default in S3 within the home region. The local block storage remains within the rack, while these backup copies are stored outside the customer’s premises in the associated AWS region.
Frankfurt Appears as the Home Region in the List
AWS lists all EU countries as eligible delivery locations for second-generation single-rack Outposts. Germany (Frankfurt), with the region eu-central-1, is included in the home region table. The FAQ also references bandwidth and latency of the service link to the region.
AWS does not disclose a list price or specific delivery date in the release. Customers must clarify these details for their specific location.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Single-Rack Outpost?
A Single-Rack Outpost is an AWS-managed Outposts service housed in a 42U rack. Compute, storage, and networking reside in the customer’s premises, while region APIs and the console manage local resources.
Can AWS add more racks to the same Outpost?
Documentation explicitly excludes this expansion for Single-Rack deployments. Additional capacity beyond a single rack requires a new, independent Single-Rack subscription.
Is Amazon S3 available locally on the Single-Rack setup?
Amazon S3 is not available locally in the Single-Rack configuration. The FAQ specifies that S3 in the home region serves as the storage location for EBS snapshots.
Are the 1U and 2U servers still available for purchase?
AWS has discontinued the original server offering and no longer accepts new customers for it. The FAQ clarifies that these servers are incompatible with the 42U rack.
Which home region is listed for Germany?
AWS lists Germany (Frankfurt) with the identifier eu-central-1 as the home region. Connectivity to this region must provide sufficient bandwidth and low latency for the service link.
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Translated from the German original using artificial intelligence. The German version is authoritative.
