Learn how Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provides a highly available, resilient, and scalable shared storage solution for multiple EC2 instances running an application.
Table of Contents
Question
A company is testing an application that runs on an Amazon EC2 Linux instance. A single 500 GB Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) General Purpose SSO (gp2) volume is attached to the EC2 instance.
The company will deploy the application on multiple EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group. All instances require access to the data that is stored in the EBS volume. The company needs a highly available and resilient solution that does not introduce significant changes to the application’s code.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
A. Provision an EC2 instance that uses NFS server software. Attach a single 500 GB gp2 EBS volume to the instance.
B. Provision an Amazon FSx for Windows File Server file system. Configure the file system as an SMB file store within a single Availability Zone.
C. Provision an EC2 instance with two 250 GB Provisioned IOPS SSD EBS volumes.
D. Provision an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system. Configure the file system to use General Purpose performance mode.
Answer
The correct answer is D: Provision an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system and configure it to use General Purpose performance mode.
Explanation
Amazon EFS is a fully managed, highly available, and scalable file storage service that provides shared access to multiple EC2 instances. It is designed to meet the requirements of the given scenario:
- High availability and resilience: EFS is designed for high availability and durability, automatically replicating data across multiple Availability Zones within a region. This ensures that the data remains accessible even if an Availability Zone becomes unavailable.
- Shared access: Multiple EC2 instances can access the same EFS file system simultaneously, allowing them to share data without the need for significant changes to the application’s code.
- Scalability: EFS automatically grows and shrinks as files are added or removed, without the need for manual provisioning or management.
- Performance: EFS offers two performance modes: General Purpose and Max I/O. The General Purpose mode is suitable for most applications and provides low latency and high throughput.
The other options are not suitable for the given requirements:
- Option A: Using an NFS server on a single EC2 instance with a single EBS volume does not provide high availability or resilience, as the failure of the instance or the EBS volume would make the data inaccessible.
- Option B: Amazon FSx for Windows File Server is designed for Windows-based applications and does not provide multi-AZ resilience when configured within a single Availability Zone.
- Option C: Using two Provisioned IOPS SSD EBS volumes does not address the requirement for shared access to data across multiple EC2 instances.
In summary, Amazon EFS with General Purpose performance mode is the best solution for providing highly available, resilient, and scalable shared storage for multiple EC2 instances running the application.
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