5. File Systems

Question 1

What is EFS?

Answer 1

Elastic File System - managed NFS that can be mounted in EC2 instances:
- uses NFSv4
- highly available and scalable, 10Gbps throughput, petabytes scaling
- compatible with Linux-based AMIs
- pay per use
- encryption at rest using KMS

Question 2

What to use EFS for?

Answer 2

• web server farms
• shared CMS, e.g. WordPress
• shared DB access

Question 3

Whar are performance options for EFS?

Answer 3

• general purpose: web servers, CMS
• Max I/O: big data, media processing

Question 4

What are storage options for EFS?

Answer 4

• standard
• infrequently accessed (cheaper) tiers
• lifecycle management possible
• regional or one-zone redundancy

Also:
- possible automated backup

Question 5

What types of EFx Amazon offers for Windows?

Answer 5

EFx for Windows File Server
- fully managed native Windows system
- based on Windows Service Message Blocks, not NFS
- built for Windows Server storage
- why? Active Directory, SharePoint migration
- supports AD users, ACL, security policies, distributed file system (DFS)

Question 6

What is Amazon FSx for Lustre?

Answer 6

Fully managed system, optimised for compute-intensive workloads like HPC, machine learning, media data processing workflows

Massive databases, hundreds of GBps, millions of IOPS, sub-millisecond latencies

Question 7

What are AMI and their types?

Answer 7

Amazon Machine Image

• EBS backed - root device is created from Amazon EBS snapshot. They can be stopped or rebooted. The root device is deleted on termination, but doesn’t have to be. in-use to available.
• Instance Store backed - the root device is created from a template stored in S3. Called ephemeral storage. Can be rebooted but not stopped. If the host fails, you lose data.

Question 8

What are EFS throughput modes?

Answer 8

• bursting or
• provisioned: 1-1024MBit/s