File Systems

Question 1

EFS

Answer 1

Elastic File System

• a managed NFS that can be mounted on many EC2 instances at once
• can also mount to Lambda, etc.
• regional
• highly scalable
• encryption at rest with KMS

Question 2

How much does EFS cost?

Answer 2

It is expensive - pay per use

Question 3

What is EFS good for?

Answer 3

web server farms

Question 4

What protocol does EFS use?

Answer 4

NFSv4

Question 5

What are the largest files you can add in EFS?

Answer 5

Petabytes

Question 6

What is performance of EBS?

Answer 6

• can support thousands of EC2 instances
• 10 Gb/s throughput
• can scale to PBs

Question 7

What type of AMIs is EFS compatible with?

Answer 7

Linux-based AMIs

windows not supported

Question 8

EFS Performance options

Answer 8

General purpose - use for web servers, CMS, etc.

Max I/O - use for big data, media processing, etc.

Question 9

EFS Storage Tiers

Answer 9

• similar to S3
• has lifecycle management - it can move your data from one tier to another after 30 days w/o access
• STANDARD: for frequently accessed files
• I/A: For less accessed files

Question 10

EFS Throughput mode: Bursting

Answer 10

throughput scales with the file system size

Question 11

EFS Throughput mode: Provisioned

Answer 11

throughput fixed at a certain amount

Question 12

FSx for Windows

Answer 12

provides a fully-managed native Microsoft Windows file system so you can move Windows-based applications that require file storage to AWS.

Question 13

What is FSx built on?

Answer 13

Windows Server

Question 14

Differences between FSx and EFS?

Answer 14

FSx is a managed windows server that runs Windows Server Block (SMB)-based file services
- EFS is a managed NAS filer for EC2 instances based on NFSv4

Question 15

FSx for Lustre

Answer 15

• for AI and machine learning*
• for massive datasets
• hundreds of GB/s
• millions of IOPS
• sub-millisecond latencies
• a managed files system
• can store data directly on S3**

Question 16

When to pick EFS on exam

Answer 16

• pick for distributed, highly resilient storage for Linux instances and Linux-based applications

Question 17

When to pick FSx on exam

Answer 17

• pick for centralized storage for Windows, Sharepoint, SQL Server, Workspaces, IIS Web Server or any other Microsoft application.

Question 18

When to pick FSx for Lustre on exam

Answer 18

• pick for high-speed, high-capacity distributed storage

- HPC, financial modeling, ML, AI

Question 19

AMIs: Instance Store

Answer 19

Instance store volumes are sometimes called ephemeral storage

• they cannot be stopped
• if the underlying host fails, you will lose your data
• can reboot them

Question 20

AMIs: EBS-backed instances

Answer 20

EBS-backed instances can be stopped.

• you won’t lose data if the instance is stopped
• can reboot them

Question 21

AWS Backup**

Answer 21

AWS Backup allows you to consolidate your backups across multiple AWS services:

• EC2, EBS, EFS, FSx, AWS Storage Gateway, RDS, DynamoDB
• Can be used with Organizations to back up multiple accounts for centralized control across all of your AWS services

Question 22

Benefits of AWS Backup*

Answer 22

1) single, central backup console
2) automated backup schedules and retention policies and lifecycle policies
3) Improved compliance and auditing