This post Introduces you to AWS Elastic File System (EFS) what it is, its features, and how it can be helpful.
AWS Storage Services: AWS provides a variety of storage services that may be provided based on your project’s needs and use case. AWS storage services include varied provisions for highly secret data, often accessed data, and seldom accessed data. You can pick between object storage, file storage, block storage services, backups, and data migration choices. All of these are included in the AWS Storage Services list.
If you are new to AWS, check our previous blog on AWS Storage type
What Is Amazon EFS?
- A fully managed file system for Amazon EC2 instances
- Exposes a file system interface that works with standard operating system APIs
- Provides file system access semantics (consistency, locking)
- Sharable across thousands of instances
- Designed to grow elastically to petabyte-scale
- Built for performance across a wide variety of workloads
- Highly available and durable
Amazon EFS is beneficial even for access from one EC2 instance
- Multi-AZ availability/durability
- Elastically grows – create it and forget about it
- Can later access it from multiple Amazon EC2 instances if needed
- Amazon EFS is simple: Fully managed, with no need for hardware, network, or file layer. Easy to Create a scalable file system in seconds with Seamless integration with existing tools and apps.
- Amazon EFS is elastic: File systems grow and shrink automatically as you add and take away files. No got to provision storage capacity or performance. You pay just for the space for storing your employees, with no minimum fee.
- Amazon EFS is scalable: File systems can grow to petabyte-scale. Throughput and IOPS scale automatically as file systems grow it provides Consistent low latencies with no matter file system size and support for thousands of concurrent NFS connections.
- Highly durable and highly available: Designed to sustain AZ offline conditions Superior to traditional NAS availability models and appropriate for production/tier applications.
Read about AWS Elastic Beanstalk here. In this post, we discuss what Elastic Beanstalk is, its advantages, and the working of Elastic Beanstalk.
Step 1: Create Your Amazon EFS File System
- To create your Amazon EFS file system. Open the Amazon EFS Management Console click here.
- Click on Create file system and open the Create file system dialogue box.
- Provide a Name for your file system, choose your VPC, or set it to your default VPC, then click “Create” to create a file system that uses default settings. After you create the file system, you can customize the file system’s settings.
- The File systems page displays a banner across the top showing the current status of the file system you created.
A link to access the file system details page appears in the banner when the file system becomes available.
Check out: AWS Free Tier Account Services
Step 2: Create EC2 Resources And Launch EC2 Instance
Note: We can’t use Amazon EFS with Microsoft Windows-based EC2 instances.
To launch the EC2 instance and mount an EFS file system
- Open the Amazon EC2 console at Amazon EC2 and Click on Launch Instance.
- In the Name and Tags step you can add tags to an instance.
- Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI), and find an Amazon Linux AMI.
- Scroll Down: Select the t2.micro instance type.
- Select an existing key pair or create a new one
- In Network Settings, Choose the default security group to make sure that it can access your EFS file system
Type: SSH
Protocol: TCP
Source: Anywhere 0.0.0.0/0
Port Range: 22 - Click on Review and Launch. Now that you have created a functioning Amazon EFS file system.
Step 3: Transfer File Data To AWS EFS Using AWS DataSync
Now that you simply have created a functioning Amazon EFS file system, you’ll use AWS DataSync to transfer
files from an existing classification system to Amazon EFS. AWS DataSync may be a data transfer service that simplifies, automates, and accelerates moving and replicating data between on-premises storage systems and AWS storage services over the web or AWS Direct Connect. AWS DataSync can transfer your file data, and also classify system metadata like ownership, timestamps, and access permissions.
AWS Elastic File System (EFS) limitations:
- Because EFS only supports the Network File System (NFS) protocol, it can only be mounted and accessed by devices that support NFS.
- EFS has a maximum throughput of 1000 MB/s and a maximum IOPS of 16,000 per file system.
- The maximum number of files and directories that can be created within a single file system in EFS is controlled by the file system’s size. A 1 TB file system, for example, can hold up to 20 million files and directories.
- Hard and symbolic linkages are not supported by EFS.
- EFS is only available in certain locations, and data migration between regions is not possible.
What Is A Mount Target?
To access your file system from instances in a VPC, you create mount targets in the VPC. A mount target is an NFS v4 endpoint in your VPC also a mount target has an IP address and a DNS name you use in your mount command
Data can be accessed from any AZ in the region while maintaining full consistency
Your EC2 instances can connect to your EFS file system from any AZ in a region. All reads will be fully consistent in all AZs—that is, a read in one AZ is guaranteed to have the latest data, even if the data is being written in another AZ
Amazon EFS is designed for a wide spectrum of use cases
Two performance modes designed to support a broad spectrum of use cases:
General-purpose mode: Optimized for latency-sensitive applications and general-purpose file-based workloads – this mode is the best option for the majority of use cases
Max I/O mode: Optimized for large-scale and data-heavy applications where tens, hundreds or thousands of EC2 instances are accessing the file system — it scales to higher levels of aggregate throughput and ops per second with a tradeoff of slightly higher latencies for file operations
Simple and predictable pricing
With EFS, you pay only for the storage space you use. No minimum commitments or up-front fees, No need to provision storage in advance, and No other fees, charges, or billing dimensions
EFS price: $0.30/GB-month
Related Links/References:
- How do I create and activate a new Amazon Web Services account?
- AWS Elastic File System User Guide
- Overview of Amazon Web Services & Concepts
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate SAA-C03 Exam
- AWS Management Console Walkthrough
Next Task For You
Begin your journey towards becoming a Certified AWS Solution Architect Associate by joining our FREE Informative Class on Amazon AWS Solution Architect Certification For Beginners & Q/A by clicking on the below image.
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