Section 5: EC2 Storage - EBS & EFS

Question 1

Your instance in us-east-1a just got terminated, and the attached EBS volume is now available. Your colleague tells you he can’t seem to attach it to your instance in us-east-1b.
A) He’s missing IAM permissions
B) EBS volumes are region locked
C) EBS volumes are AZ Locked

Answer 1

C) EBS volumes are AZ Locked

EBS Volumes are created for a specific AZ. It is possible to migrate them between different AZ through backup and restore

Question 2

You have provisioned an 8TB gp2 EBS volume and you are running out of IOPS. What is NOT a way to increase performance?

A) Increase the EBS volume size
B) Mount EBS volumes in RAID 0
C) Change to an io1 volume type

Answer 2

A) Increase the EBS volume size

EBS IOPS peaks at 16,000 IOPS. or equivalent 5334 GB.

Question 3

You would like to leverage EBS volumes in parallel to linearly increase performance, while accepting greater failure risks. Which RAID mode helps you in achieving that?
A) RAID 0
B) RAID 1
C) RAID 5
D) RAID 6

Answer 3

A) RAID 0

See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/raid-config.html

Question 4

Although EBS is already a replicated solution, your company SysOps advised you to use a RAID mode that will mirror data and will allow your instance to not be affected if an EBS volume entirely fails. Which RAID mode did he recommend to you?
A) RAID 0
B) RAID 1

Answer 4

B) RAID 1

See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/raid-config.html

Question 5

You would like to have the same data being accessible as an NFS drive cross AZ on all your EC2 instances. What do you recommend?
A) Mount an EFS
B) Mount an EBS
C) Mount an Instance Store

Answer 5

A) Mount an EFS

EFS is a network file system (NFS) and allows to mount the same file system on EC2 instances that are in different AZ

Question 6

You would like to have a high-performance cache for your application that mustn’t be shared. You don’t mind losing the cache upon termination of your instance. Which storage mechanism do you recommend as a Solution Architect?
A) Instance Store
B) EBS
C) EFS

Answer 6

A) Instance Store

Instance Store provide the best disk performance

Question 7

You are running a high-performance database that requires an IOPS of 210,000 for its underlying filesystem. What do you recommend?
A) Use EBS gp2 drive
B) Use an EBS io1 drive
C) Use and EC2 Instance Store
D) Use EFS

Answer 7

C) Use and EC2 Instance Store

Is running a DB on EC2 instance store possible? It is possible to run a database on EC2. It is also possible to use instance store, but there are some considerations to have. The data will be lost if the instance is stopped, but it can be restarted without problems. One can also set up a replication mechanism on another EC2 instance with instance store to have a standby copy. One can also have back-up mechanisms. It’s all up to how you want to set up your architecture to validate your requirements. In this case, it’s around IOPS, and we build an architecture of replication and back up around i