Chapter 7.6 - FSx Overview

Question 1

What is FSx for Windows?

Answer 1

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server provides a fully managed native Microsoft Windows file system so that you can easily move your Windows-based applications that require file storage to AWS.

Amazon FSx is built on Windows Server

Question 2

How is FSx for Windows different from EFS?

Answer 2

FSx for Windows is:

• A managed Windows Server that runs Windows Server Message Block (SMB)-based file services.
• Designed for Windows and Windows applications
• Supports AD users, access control lists, groups, and security policies, along with Distributed File System (DFS) namespaces and replication.

EFS is:

• A managed NAS filer for EC2 instances based on NFSv4.
• One of the first network file sharing protocols native to Unix and Linux.

Question 3

What is FSx for Lustre?

Answer 3

A fully managed file system that is optimized for compute-intensive workloads

High performance computing

Machine learning

Media data processing workflows

Electronic design automation

This file system can process massive datasets at up to hundreds of gigabytes per second of throughput, millions of IOPS, and sub-millisecond latencies.

Question 4

How do you choose to use EFS, FSx for Windows or FSx for Lustre?

Answer 4

EFS: When you need distributed, highly resilient storage for Linux instances and Linux-based applications.

Amazon FSx for Windows: When you need centralized storage for Windows-based applications, such as SharePoint, Microsoft SQL Server, Workspaces, IIS Web Server, or any other native Microsoft application.

Amazon FSx for Lustre: When you need high-speed, high capacity distributed storage. This will be for applications that do high performance computing (HPC), financial modeling, etc. Remember that FSx for Lustre can store data directly on S3.