EFS is service provided by AWS for corporate if they want to attach it to multiple ec2 instances. Also it is automatically scale down/up based on the storage. But how is EFS build ? Is it built on EBS? EFS is file level storage, but files also need to be stored on disk in block level(agree object store like S3 its stored differently). So I am not able to capture the difference very well. So EFS data behind the scenes is it stored on EBS?
AWS does not disclose implementation details of their services.
However, if you wish to "capture the difference":
Amazon EBS acts like a Network-attached disk (NAS). It appears as a traditional hard disk and the computer's Operating System is responsible for storing data on the disk, maintaining the directories, handling permissions, etc.
Amazon EFS is a network filesystem (SAN) that is managed by a server. The computer uses a network protocol to send/receive files, but does the Operating System is not responsible for how the data is stored on the disk (that is managed by the server).
Things are getting a little more complicated now that Amazon EBS allows volumes to be mounted on multiple Amazon EC2 computers.
Also, Amazon EBS is stored in only one Availability Zone whereas Amazon EFS filesystems are replicated across Availability Zones.
Summary
Computers (eg Amazon EC2 instances) expect to have a local disk with an operating system and applications. This is the job of Amazon EBS.
Computers on a network that wish to share data want to use a network filesystem. This is the job of Amazon EFS.
Related
I've looked at EFS and EBS Multi-Attach, but neither support Windows. I've looked at S3, but it's blob storage (I guess?), not a proper volume.
I just want a simple volume that I can mount from multiple instances. I realize I could just set up a share on one of the instances, but I'd prefer it not be instance-dependent (IE if I do scaling, etc).
Ideally I'd be able to access it as a mounted disk, but I'd also be fine with a mapped network drive.
Is there an AWS service that will do this?
I think you can mount an S3 bucket on ec2 instances.
Reference:
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/mounting-amazon-s3-to-an-amazon-ec2-instance-using-a-private-connection-to-s3-file-gateway/
I'm trying AWS auto-scaling for the first time, as far as I understand it creates instances if for example my CPU Utilization reaches critical level, that I define.
So I am curious, after I lunch my instance I spend a fair amount of time configuring it and copying the data, if AWS auto-scales my instance how will it configure the new instances and move the data to it?
You can't store any data that you want to keep on an instance that is part of an autoscaling group (well you can, but you will lose it).
There are (at least) two ways to answer your question:
Create a 'golden image', in other words spin-up an instance, configure it, install the software etc and then save it as an AMI (amazon machine image). Then tell the autoscaling group to use that AMI each time an instance starts - it will be pre-configured when it starts.
Put a script on the instance that tells the instance how to configure itself when it starts up (in the user data). SO basically each time an instance scales up, it runs the script and does all the steps it needs to to configure itself.
As for you data, best practice would be to store any data you want to keep in a database or object store that is not on the instance - so something like RDS, DynamoDB or even S3 objects.
You could also use AWS EFS, store there your data/scripts that the EC2 Instances will be sharing, and automatically mount it every time a new EC2 Instance is created via /etc/fstab.
Once you have configured the EFS to be mounted on the EC2 Instance (/etc/fstab), you should create a new AMI, and use this new AMI to create a new Launch Configuration and AutoScaling Group, so that the new Instances automatically mount your EFS and are able to consume that shared data.
https://aws.amazon.com/efs/faq/
Q. What use cases is Amazon EFS intended for?
Amazon EFS is designed to provide performance for a broad spectrum of
workloads and applications, including Big Data and analytics, media
processing workflows, content management, web serving, and home
directories.
Q. When should I use Amazon EFS vs. Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
vs. Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers cloud storage services to support a
wide range of storage workloads.
Amazon EFS is a file storage service for use with Amazon EC2. Amazon
EFS provides a file system interface, file system access semantics
(such as strong consistency and file locking), and
concurrently-accessible storage for up to thousands of Amazon EC2
instances. Amazon EBS is a block level storage service for use with
Amazon EC2. Amazon EBS can deliver performance for workloads that
require the lowest-latency access to data from a single EC2 instance.
Amazon S3 is an object storage service. Amazon S3 makes data available
through an Internet API that can be accessed anywhere.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/efs/latest/ug/mount-fs-auto-mount-onreboot.html
You can use the file fstab to automatically mount your Amazon EFS file
system whenever the Amazon EC2 instance it is mounted on reboots.
There are two ways to set up automatic mounting. You can update the
/etc/fstab file in your EC2 instance after you connect to the instance
for the first time, or you can configure automatic mounting of your
EFS file system when you create your EC2 instance.
I recommend using a shared data container if it is data that is updated and the updated data is needed by all instances that might be spinning up.
If it is database data or you could store the needed data in a database I would consider using an RDS.
If it is static data only used to configure the instances like dumps or configuration files which are not updated by running instances then I would recommend pulling them from CloudFlare or S3 of iT is not possible to pull them from a repository.
Good luck
I am new to cloud environment. I do understand the definition and storage types EBS and S3. I wanted to understand the application of EBS as compared to S3.
I do understand EBS looks like a device for heavy though put operations. I cannot find any application where this can be used in comparison to S3. I could think of putting server logs on EBS on magnetic storage, as one EBS can be attached to one instance.
S3 you can use the scaling property to add some heavy data and expand in real time. We can deploy our slef managed dbs on this service.
Please correct me if I am wrong. Please help me understand what is best suited for what and application of them in comparison with one another.
As you stated, they are primarily different types of storage:
Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) is a persistent disk-storage service, which provides storage volumes to a virtual machine (similar to VMDK files in VMWare)
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is an object store system that stores files as objects and optionally makes them available across the Internet.
So, how do people choose which to use? It's quite simple... If they need a volume mounted on an Amazon EC2 instance, they need to use Amazon EBS. It gives them a C:, D: drive, etc in Windows and a mountable volume in Linux. Computers traditionally expect to have locally-attached disk storage. Put simply: If the operating system or an application running on an Amazon EC2 instance wants to store data locally, it will use EBS.
EBS Volumes are actually stored on two physical devices in case of failure, but an EBS volume appears as a single volume. The volume size must be selected when the volume is created. The volume exists in a single Availability Zone and can only be attached to EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone. EBS Volumes persist even when the attached EC2 instance is Stopped; when the instance is Started again, the disk remains attached and all data has been presrved.
Amazon S3, however, is something quite different. It is a storage service that allows files to be uploaded/downloaded (PutObject, GetObject) and files are replicated across at least three data centers. Files can optionally be accessed via the Internet via HTTP/HTTPS without requiring a web server. There are no limits on the amount of data that can be stored. Access can be granted per-object, per-bucket via a Bucket Policy, or via IAM Users and Groups.
Amazon S3 is a good option when data needs to be shared (both locally and across the Internet), retained for long periods, backed-up (or even for storing backups) and made accessible to other systems. However, applications need to specifically coded to use Amazon S3 and many traditional application expect to store data on a local drive rather than on a separate storage service.
While Amazon S3 has many benefits, there are still situations where Amazon EBS is a better storage choice:
When using applications that expect to store data locally
For storing temporary files
When applications want to partially update files, because the smallest storage unit in S3 is a file and updating a part of a file requires re-uploading the whole file
For very High-IO situations, such as databases (EBS Provisioned IOPS can provide volumes up to 20,000 IOPS)
For creating volume snapshots as backups
For creating Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that can be used to boot EC2 instances
Bottom line: They are primarily different types of storage and each have their own usage sweet-spot, just like a Database is a good form of storage depending upon the situation.
How can i attach persistent storage on Elastic Beanstalk ?
I know i need to have a .config file where i set the parameters of the environment to run every time an instance is created.
My goal is to have a volume, let's say 100GB, that even if the instances got deleted/terminated, i have this volume with persistent data where all instances can access to read from.
I could use S3 to store this data, but it would require changes to the application, and latency could be a problem.
This way i could access the filesystem like any common server.
AWS now offer a solution called Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) that lets multiple instances access a shared file store.
If your desire is to have a central data repository that all EC2 instances can access, then Amazon S3 would be your best option.
Normal disk volumes are provided via Elastic Block Store (EBS). EBS volumes can only be mounted to one EC2 instance at a time. Therefore, to share data that is contained on an EBS volume, you will need to use normal network sharing methods to mount network volumes.
However, if your goal is to provide shared access without one specific instance sharing a volume to other instances, then it is better to use S3 because it is accessible from all instances. It would likely be worth the effort of modifying your application to take advantage of S3.
Are there different type of a volume other than EBS volume in aws?
I see a term EBS volume but don't seem to recall any other volume mentioned.
Also, EBS is just a name for their volume?
EBS - volume
Hard - disk
It depends on your definition of "Volume". There are actually 4 types of storage available on AWS, though only Instance Storage and EBS qualify as "Volumes".
1: Instance Storage
- This is storage tied directly to an instance, like a hard drive on a physical machine. http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/InstanceStorage.html
2: EBS
- You could think of EBS like an external drive on a physical machine. It can be detached and attached to another instance. http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/
3: S3
- This is an http based storage option. It is extremely reliable, but cannot be mapped as a volume directly, files must be retreived via an http request. http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
4: Glacier
- This is meant to be a replacement for backup tapes. It is very slow to access, but very reliable. It is only intended for backup purposes as there are heavy fees for frequent access. http://aws.amazon.com/glacier/
In terms of volumes for AWS that I know of there are two:
EBS Volumes. These are managed drives for your EC2 instances. You can boot off them, snapshot them, and move them between machines. EBS volumes come in two flavors: Standard and PIOPS. The billing between the two is slightly different, as are their performance characteristics. Unlike Ephemeral volumes the data written to EBS is durable. You can create EBS drives in a number of ways.
Ephemeral Volumes. These are volumes that come-and-go along with your EC2 instance. Anything you write to them will be lost if the EC2 instance is shutdown or moved.
AWS has a number of other storage offerings (RDS, S3, DynamoDB, Glacier) but they're not focused on offering products that act like hard disks.
Storage in AWS
Amazon S3
Amazon Elastic Block Store
Amazon Elastic File System
Amazon FSx for Lustre
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server
Amazon S3 Glacier
AWS Storage Gateway
Amazon S3
:- Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. This means customers of all sizes and industries can use it to store and protect any amount of data for a range of use cases, such as websites, mobile applications, backup and restore, archive, enterprise applications, IoT devices, and big data analytics. Amazon S3 provides easy-to-use management features so you can organize your data and configure finely-tuned access controls to meet your specific business, organizational, and compliance requirements. Amazon S3 is designed for 99.999999999% (11 9's) of durability, and stores data for millions of applications for companies all around the world.
Amazon Elastic Block Store:-
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides persistent block storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances in the AWS Cloud. Each Amazon EBS volume is automatically replicated within its Availability Zone to protect you from component failure, offering high availability and durability. Amazon EBS volumes offer the consistent and low-latency performance needed to run your workloads. With Amazon EBS, you can scale your usage up or down within minutes—all while paying a low price for only what you provision.
Amazon Elastic File System:-
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) provides a simple, scalable, elastic file system for Linux-based workloads for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. It is built to scale on demand to petabytes without disrupting applications, growing and shrinking automatically as you add and remove files, so your applications have the storage they need – when they need it. It is designed to provide massively parallel shared access to thousands of Amazon EC2 instances, enabling your applications to achieve high levels of aggregate throughput and IOPS with consistent low latencies. Amazon EFS is a fully managed service that requires no changes to your existing applications and tools, providing access through a standard file system interface for seamless integration. Amazon EFS is a regional service storing data within and across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) for high availability and durability. You can access your file systems across AZs and regions and share files between thousands of Amazon EC2 instances and on-premises servers via AWS Direct Connect or AWS VPN.
Amazon EFS is well suited to support a broad spectrum of use cases from highly parallelized, scale-out workloads that require the highest possible throughput to single-threaded, latency-sensitive workloads. Use cases such as lift-and-shift enterprise applications, big data analytics, web serving and content management, application development and testing, media and entertainment workflows, database backups, and container storage.
Amazon FSx for Lustre:-
Amazon FSx for Lustre is a fully managed file system that is optimized for compute-intensive workloads, such as high performance computing, machine learning, and media data processing workflows. Many of these applications require the high-performance and low latencies of scale-out, parallel file systems. Operating these file systems typically requires specialized expertise and administrative overhead, requiring you to provision storage servers and tune complex performance parameters. With Amazon FSx, you can launch and run a Lustre file system that can process massive data sets at up to hundreds of gigabytes per second of throughput, millions of IOPS, and sub-millisecond latencies.
Amazon FSx for Lustre is seamlessly integrated with Amazon S3, making it easy to link your long-term data sets with your high performance file systems to run compute-intensive workloads. You can automatically copy data from S3 to FSx for Lustre, run your workloads, and then write results back to S3. FSx for Lustre also enables you to burst your compute-intensive workloads from on-premises to AWS by allowing you to access your FSx file system over Amazon Direct Connect or VPN. FSx for Lustre helps you cost-optimize your storage for compute-intensive workloads: It provides cheap and performant non-replicated storage for processing data, with your long-term data stored durably in Amazon S3 or other low-cost data stores. With Amazon FSx, you pay for only the resources you use. There are no minimum commitments, upfront hardware or software costs, or additional fees.
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server:-
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server provides a fully managed native Microsoft Windows file system so you can easily move your Windows-based applications that require file storage to AWS. Built on Windows Server, Amazon FSx provides shared file storage with the compatibility and features that your Windows-based applications rely on, including full support for the SMB protocol and Windows NTFS, Active Directory (AD) integration, and Distributed File System (DFS). Amazon FSx uses SSD storage to provide the fast performance your Windows applications and users expect, with high levels of throughput and IOPS, and consistent sub-millisecond latencies. This compatibility and performance is particularly important when moving workloads that require Windows shared file storage, like CRM, ERP, and .NET applications, as well as home directories.
With Amazon FSx, you can launch highly durable and available Windows file systems that can be accessed from up to thousands of compute instances using the industry-standard SMB protocol. Amazon FSx eliminates the typical administrative overhead of managing Windows file servers. You pay for only the resources used, with no upfront costs, minimum commitments, or additional fees.
Amazon S3 Glacier:-
Amazon S3 Glacier is a secure, durable, and extremely low-cost storage service for data archiving and long-term backup. It is designed to deliver 99.999999999% durability, and provides comprehensive security and compliance capabilities that can help meet even the most stringent regulatory requirements. Amazon S3 Glacier provides query-in-place functionality, allowing you to run powerful analytics directly on your archive data at rest. You can store data for as little as $0.004 per gigabyte per month, a significant savings compared to on-premises solutions. To keep costs low yet suitable for varying retrieval needs, Amazon S3 Glacier provides three options for access to archives, from a few minutes to several hours.
AWS Storage Gateway:-
The AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid storage service that enables your on-premises applications to seamlessly use AWS cloud storage. You can use the service for backup and archiving, disaster recovery, cloud data processing, storage tiering, and migration. Your applications connect to the service through a virtual machine or hardware gateway appliance using standard storage protocols, such as NFS, SMB and iSCSI. The gateway connects to AWS storage services, such as Amazon S3, Glacier, and Amazon EBS, providing storage for files, volumes, and virtual tapes in AWS. The service includes a highly-optimized data transfer mechanism, with bandwidth management, automated network resilience, and efficient data transfer, along with a local cache for low-latency on-premises access to your most active data.