EC2 - EFS Flashcards
What is Amazon EFS?
Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is a fully managed network file system (NFS) that can be mounted on many EC2 instances across multiple availability zones, offering scalability, high availability, and cost-per-use pricing.
What are the key features of Amazon EFS?
Highly Available: Accessible from multiple EC2 instances in different AZs.
Scalable: Automatically scales without requiring capacity planning.
Pay-per-Use: Charges based on the amount of data used.
NFS Protocol: Uses NFS (Network File System) for file system access.
Linux-Compatible: Only compatible with Linux-based AMIs.
Encryption: Supports encryption at rest using KMS.
What is the main use case for Amazon EFS?
Amazon EFS is ideal for use cases like content management, web serving, data sharing, and WordPress hosting due to its ability to be accessed from multiple EC2 instances.
What protocol does EFS use internally?
Amazon EFS uses the NFS (Network File System) protocol.
What are the two performance modes available for EFS?
General Purpose: Best for latency-sensitive use cases (e.g., web servers, CMS).
Max I/O: Designed for high-throughput, low-latency applications, suitable for big data or media processing.
What are the throughput modes available in EFS?
Bursting: Automatically bursts throughput based on storage size (default).
Provisioned: Allows you to set a specific throughput independent of storage size.
Elastic: Scales throughput automatically based on workload demands (ideal for unpredictable workloads).
What are the EFS storage tiers?
Standard: For frequently accessed files.
EFS-IA (Infrequent Access): For files that are accessed less frequently, lower cost to store but retrieval incurs a fee.
Archive: For rarely accessed data (e.g., accessed a few times a year), offering the lowest cost.
How does lifecycle management work in Amazon EFS?
Lifecycle management allows files to automatically transition between different storage tiers after a certain number of days. For example, files that haven’t been accessed for 60 days can be moved from Standard to EFS-IA.
What are the two availability options in EFS?
Multi-AZ: Provides high availability across multiple availability zones, ideal for production workloads.
One-AZ: A lower-cost option where the file system is available in only one availability zone (also supports EFS-IA storage).
Can you use Amazon EFS with Windows-based instances?
No, Amazon EFS is only compatible with Linux-based AMIs and not Windows instances.
How do you control access to your Amazon EFS?
Access to Amazon EFS is controlled using security groups, which manage the network traffic to and from the EFS file system.
Which service offers multi-AZ durability?
EFS offers multi-AZ durability by replicating data across multiple AZs. EBS, by default, is tied to a single AZ.
Which service automatically scales storage as needed?
EFS scales automatically to accommodate growing storage needs. EBS requires manual resizing of volumes.
Do backups impact performance on EBS and EFS?
EBS: Snapshots can impact I/O performance.
EFS: Backups are automatically handled and do not directly impact performance.
