Amazon EFS

Introduction to Amazon EFS

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is a fully managed, scalable file storage solution by AWS, perfect for sharing across multiple EC2 instances. It is designed for applications needing a central, elastic file storage system that can grow to petabyte scale.

Creating and Managing EFS

Creating and managing an EFS file system is user-friendly. You can use the AWS Management Console, CLI, or SDKs. When setting up, you choose between two performance modes: General Purpose for low latency or Max I/O for higher throughput. Additionally, you select a throughput mode: Bursting, which adapts to your workload's demands, or Provisioned for consistent throughput needs.

Automatic Management and Data Protection

Once created, EFS manages itself, offering performance monitoring, automatic scaling, and lifecycle management. Less accessed data can be shifted to the Infrequent Access (IA) storage class to optimize costs. Integration with AWS Backup ensures your data is safeguarded with options for EFS-to-EFS backups.

Key Features of Amazon EFS

Key features of Amazon EFS include its scalability, elasticity, durability with eleven 9's of data integrity, and shared access. This shared access allows multiple EC2 instances to interact with the same file system, which is particularly beneficial for environments where data needs to be centrally managed but accessed by various components of an application.

Use Cases for Amazon EFS

Big Data and Analytics: EFS can host data for tools like Hadoop, enabling efficient processing across multiple nodes.

Content Management: Ideal for systems where users frequently access shared files.

Web Serving: EFS can host content accessible from multiple servers, improving load distribution.

Media Processing: Manages large files needed for tasks like transcoding or editing.

User Home Directories: Provides scalable storage for user directories or shared code in CI/CD pipelines.

Containerized Environments: In ECS or EKS, EFS offers persistent storage with dynamic provisioning.

Optimizing Performance and Security

To optimize performance, use the IA storage class for less accessed data. Security features include encryption at rest and in transit, IAM roles for access control, and EFS access points for directory-specific access.

Cost Management

EFS uses a usage-based pricing model. Lifecycle policies help manage costs by controlling data transitions. EFS also uses mount targets within a VPC to ensure EC2 instances can connect across availability zones, providing both availability and resilience.