How AWS EFS Works with Backup?

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is a scalable, managed Network File System (NFS) that provides shared storage for Amazon Web Services (AWS) resources such as Amazon EC2 instances and containers. In this article, we’ll explore how EFS works with backup, ensuring the safety and recoverability of your data

AWS EFS, it stands for Amazon Elastic File System. It is a scalable and fully managed file storage service that provides simple and scalable file storage for use with AWS Cloud Services and On-premises. It facilitates to easily create and manage the file systems quickly and easily. It is deals for workloads that requires the sharing access to data, web serving and big data analytics.

AWS EFS provides efficient backups through its seamless integration with AWS Backups and performing restore operations. Through this users can create the backup plans with specifying the backup frequency, retention policies and life cycle management. AWS Backups automate the process of creating and managing the backups ensuring the data integrity and compliance.

AWS EFS snapshots are point-in-time backups of your file system data that is stored in Amaozn Elastic File System (EFS). They captures the state of your file system at a specific moments enabling you to create consistent backups for data protection and disaster recovery purposes.

Amazon EFS provides 2 types of EFS Storage Classes based on the performances and latency factors. They are as follows:

1. Standard: IT will be ideal for frequently accessed data that requiring high-performance and low-latency access.

2. Infrequent Access (IA): It is suitable for less frequently accessed data on offiering cost saving with slightly higher latency.

Step 1: First create AWS EFS from the EFS page. On the EFS page click on Create File System.

Step 2: Specify file system name and VPC where you want to create EFS and click on create

Step 3: Once the EFS is ready you can see that automatic backup is enabled by default. Which will backup EFS daily automatically. But if you want to configure custom backup policy. Then click on AWS backup from left navigation .

• On Backup page click on create backup plan, now the AWS EFS has successfully created.

Step 1: Now on create AWS EFS Backup on specifying settings as below . You can select template as per your requirement or you can configure backup plan from scratch .

• After clicking on the create backup plan, we will be directed for defining the specifications as follows. Choose the specifications as needed.

Step 2: Leave other options as default and click create. Once It is created click on Assign. On assign page specify assignment name and select IAM role . We will use default IAM role for now.

Step 3: Now under resource selection select “Include specific resource type” .

Step 4: Now select specific resource type as “EFS” under EFS select your EFS from dropdown .

• Leave other options as default or specify as per your requirement . Then Click assign .
• Once this is done the EFS is associated with backup plan . It will be backup daily for retention period of 35 days as we have specified . You can configure backup plans as your requirement for EFS .

The following are the steps for deleting the Amazon EFS Backups:

Step 1: Access AWS Backup Console

• Firstly log in to your AWS Management Console with your credentials and then navigate to AWS Backup Service.

Step 2: Select Backup Vault

• Once landed to AWS Backup Service, choose the backup vault that contains the EFS backups you want to delete.

Step 3: View Backup Jobs

• Locate the backup job that is associated with the EFS file system you wishing to delete.

Step 4: Delete Backup Job

• In the backup jobs, select the backup jobs that you wish to delete and choose the delete option to delete. Confirm once with backup jobs you want delete by entering delete on showing box.

Step 5: Verify Deletion

• After deleting the backup jobs ensure whether they are deleted or not from the vault by viewing in the AWS Backup jobs.

The following are the steps to perform EFS to EFS backups:

Step 1: Setup Source And Destination EFS file systems

Firstly ensure you have both the source and destination EFS created and accessable in your AWS Account.

Step 2: Use Data Sync

• Now, Try on using AWS Service such as AWS Data Sync a service that is designed for fast and secure data transfers between EFS systems.
• It Configures the DataSync tasks to sync data from the source EFS file system to the destination EFS file system.

Step 3: Schedule Sync Tasks

• Configuring the DataSync, set up a schedule for DataSync tasks to regularly sync data between source and destination EFS file systems to ensures the backups to be up to date.

Step 4: Monitor And Manage

• Regularly monitor the DataSync tasks to ensure smoothly running and resolve troubleshooting issues if any arise. Adjust the scheduling or configurations as needed to optimize the performance and resource usage.

The following are the steps used to restore an Amazon EFS file system using AWS Backup:

Step 1: Access AWS Backup Console

• Firstly login your AWS Management Console with your credentials and navigate to your AWS Backup Service.

Step 2: Select Recovery Points

• Choose the backup vault that contains the desired looking EFS file system backups.
• Select the specific recovery point (backup) you want to restore from.

Step 3: Initate Restore Job

• Click on the “Restore” option and provide the details such as the target region and file system settings for restoring process.

Step 4: Review and Confirm

• Review the restoration details once and then confirm it to inititate for restoring the EFS file system process.

Step 5: Monitor Progress

• Ensure to monitor the restoring progress of the job to an Amazon File system in the AWS Backup Console. Once completing the process verify the successful restoration of the EFS system.

Automatic Backups refers to the process of automating the backups and managing them without any manual interventions. These backups are typically shceduled at regular intervals for ensuring data protection and recovery in case of data disastery cases. Services like AWS Backup offers the automation of backup solutions for various AWS resources for simplifying the backup management and ensuring the data resilience with minimal efforts from the user.

The following the steps for turn on or off the Automatic Backups for Existing File Systems:

Step 1: Access EFS Console

• Firstly login in to your AWS Account with your credentials and navigate to the Amazon EFS service page.

Step 2: Select File System

• Choose the existing Elastic File System for which you want to manage the automatic backups.

Step 3: Modify the Backup Settings

• In that configuration of selecting EFS service, under the backup tab, Customize the Automatic Backups settings to turn on or off according to the preference.

Concurrent Backups refers to the capability of a system to execute multiple backup processes simultaneously. This feature facilitates with more efficient use of resources and faster backup completion times. It is especially used in environments with large datasets or high backup demands.

Backup Performance is a measure of speed and efficiency in performing the backup operations. It includes the factors such as backup speed, throughput and resource utilization. Optimization of backup performance provides timely and reliable data protection which minimize the impact on system resources and operations.

The following is the pricing table for AWS EFS Backup:

The following are the AWS EFS key features:

• Data Storage: AWS EFS supports the NFSv4 protocol and provides both Standard and Infrequent Access storage classes, allowing you to choose the appropriate storage option based on access patterns and costs.
• Security and Access Control: EFS integrates with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for access control. You can define permissions at the file and directory level.
• Durability and Availability: EFS stores data across multiple AZs within a region, ensuring high durability and availability. It also supports the Multi-AZ feature for automatic failover.

The following are the best practices of AWS EFS:

• Define a backup and retention policy that suits your data protection requirements.
• Test the backup and restore process to ensure you can recover data successfully.
• Regularly monitor and manage your backups to ensure they are up to date and functioning as expected.
• Implement a combination of automated and manual backup strategies to cover various scenarios.
• Consider data encryption to enhance the security of your backups.

Through this article we have learnt choosing an appropriate backup strategy, and above steps outlined in this article , you can effectively set up and manage backups for your EFS file systems, enhancing your data protection and recovery capabilities.

Can we take backup for Amazon EFS?

Yes, we can take the backups for Amazon EFS using AWS Backup Service.

How to check EFS backup in AWS?

We can check the EFS backup in AWS on accessingthe AWS Backup Console and navigating to the Backup Vault containing the EFS backups.

What is the purpose of EFS in AWS?

The purpose of EFS in AWS is to provide the scalable and elastic file storage for using with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources.

How long does it take to restore EFS Backup?

The time it takes to restores the EFS Backups will depend on the factors like size of the data, and network speed.

What is the limitation of EFS?

The limitation of Amazon EFS includes the limited availability in some AWS regions and performance scaling challenges for extremely high-throughput workloads.

Is AWS EFS a block storage?

No, AWS EFS is file storage not a block storage.