M7: Storage

Question 1

EBS

Answer 1

Persistent storage
Automatically replicated within availability zone
Durable, detachable, block level storage
Directly attached to instances - low latency
Included in AMIs
Can be encrypted for no extra cost

Question 2

Backup of EBS

Answer 2

Snapshot

Can recreate new volume from a snapshot at any time

Question 3

Uses of EBS

Answer 3

Boot volumes and storage for EC2
Data storage with file system
Database hosts
Enterprise applications

Question 4

EBS volume types

Answer 4

Provisioned IOPS SSD-backed EBS volumes
General purpose SSD
Magnetic

Question 5

EBS costs

Answer 5

Volumes
IOPS
Snapshots
Data transfer

Question 6

Amazon S3

Answer 6

Object level storage

Includes event notifications

Question 7

S3 storage classes

Answer 7

Standard: high durability & availability for frequently accessed data
Intelligent tiering: automatically moves data to the most cost effective tier
Standard infrequent access: accessed less frequently but may require rapid access. Good for long term storage and backups
One zone infrequent access: as above but instead of the usual 3 availability zones. Secondary backups or easily recreatable data
Glacier: data archiving, 3 retrieval options, can upload data directly or use lifecycle policies
Glacier deep archive: for data accessed once or twice a year. 11 9s of durability. Restored within 12 hours.

Question 8

S3 buckets

Answer 8

Data stored inside buckets
Named uniquely
Associated with a specific region
Good for
- application data 
- static website hosting
- storage of backups of data (can be configured for cross region replication)
- application hosting
- media hosting

Question 9

S3 payments

Answer 9

Storage type
Pay for what you use: amount of storage
Transfer out of region
Put, copy, post, list and get requests

Question 10

Amazon EFS

Answer 10

Storage for EC2 instances that multiple virtual machines can access at the same time
Dynamically scales on demand

Question 11

To create EFS

Answer 11

1. Create EC2 resources and launch instance
2. Create EFS
3. In the appropriate subnets, create your mount targets.
4. Connect to your amazon EC2 instance and mount the EFS
5. Clean up your resources and protect your AWS account

Question 12

Mount target properties

Answer 12

Mount target ID
Subnet ID for the FS where it was created
File system ID for the file system where it was created
An IP address where the file system can be mounted
The mount target state

Question 13

Amazon S3 Glacier concepts

Answer 13

Archive: any object, has own ID
Vault: container for storing archives. Vault name & region.
Vault access policy: who can do what
Retrieval: expedited, standard, bulk

Question 14

Lifecycle policy

Answer 14

Cycle data between different storage types at regular intervals

Question 15

S3 vs S3 Glacier encryption

Answer 15

Can transfer securely over HTTPS
Data archived in S3 Glacier is encrypted by default
Server side encryption must be initiated by application for S3