For a new NC2 on AWS deployment where workload VMs have low storage and memory requirements but high CPU frequency ( > 3.0 GHz) requirements, and the goal is to minimize the number of CPU cores to reduce application licensing costs, thei3.metalinstance type is the most suitable.

i3.metal:

High CPU Frequency: i3.metal instances offer high-frequency Intel Xeon processors (up to 3.1 GHz) which meet the high CPU frequency requirement.

Low Storage and Memory: These instances come with a balanced amount of storage and memory, suitable for workloads with low requirements in these areas.

Minimized CPU Cores: i3.metal instances have fewer CPU cores compared to other high-frequency instances like i4i.metal, making them ideal for minimizing application licensing costs.

Other Instance Types:

z1d.metal: While also offering high CPU frequency, these instances typically come with a higher core count and more memory, which may not be optimal for minimizing licensing costs.

i4i.metal: Designed for I/O intensive applications with higher core counts.

m5d.metal: Balanced instance type but with more cores and not as high CPU frequency as required.

AWS EC2 Instance Types Documentation

Nutanix Cloud Clusters on AWS Administration Guide

Nutanix Best Practices for Instance Selection