Amazon EFS Fundamentals

Introduction

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is a scalable file storage service that can be used with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. EFS is designed to provide a simple, scalable, elastic, and fully managed file storage solution for use with Amazon EC2 instances and other AWS services.

What is Amazon EFS?

Amazon EFS is a cloud-native file storage solution that offers a fully managed, elastic, and scalable file system to store and access files across multiple EC2 instances. It supports the NFS (Network File System) protocol and provides a simple interface for managing file storage.

Key Benefits

• Scalability: Automatically scales based on the amount of data stored.
• Performance: Provides low-latency access to shared files.
• Availability: Data is stored across multiple Availability Zones for high availability and durability.
• Flexibility: Supports multiple EC2 instances and services for a wide range of applications.

Use Cases

Amazon EFS is ideal for various use cases including:

• Web serving and content management.
• Big data analytics.
• Backup and restore applications.
• Media processing workflows.

Setting Up EFS

Follow these steps to set up an Amazon EFS file system:

                1. Go to the AWS Management Console.
                2. Navigate to the EFS service.
                3. Click on “Create file system”.
                4. Configure the file system settings (name, performance mode, etc.).
                5. Set up access points and mount targets in your desired VPC and subnets.
                6. Review and create the file system.
                

Best Practices

• Use appropriate performance modes based on your application's needs.
• Implement lifecycle management to reduce costs by moving infrequently accessed files to EFS Infrequent Access.
• Use access points for granular permissions and ease of management.
• Monitor performance and usage through Amazon CloudWatch.

FAQ

Flowchart for Setting Up EFS

            graph TD;
                A[Start] --> B[Go to AWS Management Console];
                B --> C[Navigate to EFS service];
                C --> D[Create file system];
                D --> E[Configure settings];
                E --> F[Set up access points and mount targets];
                F --> G[Review and create];
                G --> H[End];