Features of AWS EFS
- Storage capacity: Theoretically EFS provides an infinite amount of storage capacity. This capacity grows and shrinks as required by the user.
- Fully Managed: Being an AWS-managed service, EFS takes the overhead of creating, managing, and maintaining file servers and storage.
- Multi EC2- Instance Connectivity: EFS can be shared between any number of EC2- instances by using mount targets.
- Note-: A mount target is an Access point for AWS EFS that is further attached to EC2 instances, allowing then access to the EFS.
- Availability: AWS EFS is region specific., however, can be present in multiple availability zones in a single region.
- EC2- instances across different availability zones can connect to EFS in that zone for a quicker access
- EFS LifeCycle Management: Lifecycle management moved files between storage classes. Users can select a retention period parameter (in number of days). Any file in standard storage which is not accessed for this time period is moved to the Infrequently accessed class for cost-saving.
- Note that the retention period of the file in standard storage resets each time the file is accessed
- Files once accessed in the IA EFS class are then moved to Standard storage.
- Note that file metadata and files under 128KB cannot be transferred to the IA storage class.
- LifeCycle management can be turned on and off as deemed fit by the users.
- Durability: Multi-availability zone presence accounts for the high durability of the Elastic File System.
- Transfer: Data can be transferred from on-premise to the EFS in the cloud using AWS Data Sync Service. Data Sync can also be used to transfer data between multiple EFS across regions.
The above image shows an Elastic File System shared between two instances which are further connected to their own EBS volumes. The following are some use cases of EFS:
- Multiple server architectures: In AWS only EFS provides a shared file system. So all the applications that require multiple servers to share one single file system have to use EFS.
- Big Data Analytics: Virtually infinite capacity and extremely high throughput make EFS highly suitable for storing files for Big data analysis.
- Reliable data file storage: EBS data is stored redundantly in a single Availability Zone however EFS data is stored redundantly in multiple Availability Zones. Making it more robust and reliable than EBS.
- Media Processing: High capacity and high throughput make EFS highly favorable for processing big media files.
Introduction to AWS Elastic File System(EFS)
AWS(Amazon Web Services) offers a wide range of storage services that can be provisioned depending on your project requirements and use case. AWS storage services have different provisions for highly confidential data, frequently accessed data, and the not so frequently accessed data. You can choose from various storage types namely, object storage, file storage, block storage services, backups, and data migration options. All of which fall under the AWS Storage Services list.
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