Module 6: Storage

Block Storage

Low latency storage volumes that attach EC2 instances like physical hard drives

Amazon EC2 instance store

Unmanaged storage and high-performance storage attaches to EC2 instances for temporary data

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)

Managed service that provides persistent block storage

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

Fully managed service for storing and retrieving any amount of data anywhere

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)

Fully managed scalable NFS file system with AWS Cloud

Amazon FSx

Fully managed file storage services for file systems like Windows

Fully managed service

AWS is responsible for hardware and infrastructure. Customer only responsible for data management, access controls, and proper service config.

Managed Service

AWS manages the infrastructure, hardware redundancy, and volume replication. Customers are responsible for data backup strategies, encryption configuration, and capacity planning.

Unmanaged service

AWS only maintain physical hardware and infrastructure. Customers take full responsibility for data management, backup/recovery, and encryption.

Block Level Storage

Place to store files

Amazon EBS

Create virtual hard drives to EC2 instances

A developer is building an application that processes large amounts of data and requires high I/O performance. After processing the data for an operation, the results are displayed to the user and do not need to be retained long-term. Unfortunately, the application's current storage solution is experiencing performance bottlenecks during peak processing times.

How could implementing an EC2 instance store improve the performance of the application?

EC2 instance store provides high I/O performance for temporary storage needs.

EC2 instance store reduces overall storage costs by offering the cheapest per-gigabyte storage option in AWS.

EC2 instance store provides a persistent storage solution that survives instance failures.

EC2 instance store allows storage to be conveniently shared between multiple EC2 instances simultaneously.

EC2 instance store provides high I/O performance for temporary storage needs.

AnyCompany Finance is designing an application that requires consistent and low-latency access to financial data. They're looking for a storage solution that provides persistent block storage.

Why would Amazon EBS be suitable to store data in this scenario?

Amazon EBS allows sharing volumes across multiple AWS Regions without any latency impact.

Amazon EBS automatically scales volume capacity without requiring any volume modifications.

Amazon EBS provides unlimited input/output operations per second (IOPS) for all volume types, regardless of size.

Amazon EBS provides high availability and durability by automatically replicating volumes within the same Availability Zone.

Amazon EBS provides high availability and durability by automatically replicating volumes within the same Availability Zone.

AnyCompany Software is migrating their on-premises application architecture to AWS. They are particularly concerned about data persistence because in their current environment, they have experienced data loss when virtual machines (VMs) crashed. They want to understand how Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) can help address their data persistence requirements when they move their workloads to Amazon EC2 instances.

How does Amazon EBS solve the data persistence issue described in this scenario?

EBS automatically synchronizes data with Amazon S3 every 5 minutes, ensuring that if an EC2 instance crashes, all data can be immediately restored from the S3 backup.

Amazon EBS caches all data in memory for instant recovery when instances are restarted.

Amazon EBS volumes exist independently from the instance and persist even after the instance is terminated.

Amazon EBS automatically backs up all data to Amazon S3 every hour to help ensure persistence.

Amazon EBS volumes exist independently from the instance and persist even after the instance is terminated.

Amazon EBS Snapshots

Backups of EBS volume

AnyCompany Commerce operates an online trading platform experiencing rapid growth. Their development team frequently needs to create test environments that mirror production for testing new features, but setting up these environments has become time-consuming and error-prone.

What is the most significant benefit of using EBS snapshots in this scenario?

EBS snapshots enable rapid creation of new volumes from existing data, so you can quickly deploy identical test environments that mirror production.

EBS snapshots automatically optimize the performance of your EBS volumes by defragmenting data during the snapshot process.

EBS snapshots reduce your storage costs by compressing all data on your EBS volumes by up to 90 percent.

EBS snapshots automatically migrate your data to different AWS Regions for improved global access speeds.

EBS snapshots enable rapid creation of new volumes from existing data, so you can quickly deploy identical test environments that mirror production.

AnyCompany Healthcare manages thousands of EBS volumes containing patient records. They need to ensure that this data is properly backed up, retained according to compliance requirements, and old snapshots are removed to control costs.

Which problem does AWS Data Lifecycle Manager primarily solve in this scenario?

Providing real-time monitoring of EBS volume performance metrics

Encrypting sensitive patient data stored on EBS volumes

Automating the creation, retention, and deletion of EBS snapshots and EBS backed Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) according to a schedule

Migrating patient data from on-premises storage to AWS Cloud storage

Automating the creation, retention, and deletion of EBS snapshots and EBS backed Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) according to a schedule

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

Store and retrieve unlimited amount of data

AnyCompany Mobile is evaluating cloud storage solutions for their new mobile application. They need a reliable service that can handle various types of data storage requirements as their user base grows.

Based on this scenario, what is an aspect of Amazon S3 that they could use in this scenario?

Running relational database queries for user authentication

Hosting virtual machines (VMs) to process application logic

Real-time data streaming and message processing

Storing and distributing mobile application content and user-generated media files

Storing and distributing mobile application content and user-generated media files

AnyCompany Marketing has created an Amazon S3 bucket to host images for their new website. The images need to be accessible to anyone visiting the website without authentication. After uploading the images to the bucket, users report they cannot access them, even though the bucket policy is set to allow public access.

What is the most likely cause of this access issue?

The images are not properly tagged with public read permissions.

Block public access settings are enabled at the account or bucket level.

They need to enable the website hosting feature to make any Amazon S3 content public.

The S3 bucket must be in the same AWS Region as the users trying to access the content.

Block public access settings are enabled at the account or bucket level.

AnyCompany Media is looking for a new cloud storage solution. They distribute large video files to users around the world, and are looking for a service that is highly durable, scalable, and offers various access control mechanisms.

Based on this scenario, which Amazon S3 feature would be particularly beneficial?

Amazon S3 offers 99.999999999 percent (11 nines) of durability for objects stored across multiple Availability Zones. This maintains highly available for their video content and protects it against data loss.

Amazon S3 automatically compresses all stored objects to reduce storage costs by up to 90 percent, making it ideal for large video files.

Amazon S3 limits individual object sizes to 5 GB, requiring companies to split large video files before upload.

Amazon S3 provides built-in video transcoding services that automatically convert videos to different formats when they are uploaded.

Amazon S3 offers 99.999999999 percent (11 nines) of durability for objects stored across multiple Availability Zones. This maintains highly available for their video content and protects it against data loss.

Amazon S3 Standard

Fast and affordable for data accessible everyday

Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access

Cost effective retrieval needed

Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval

Optimize cost and has a lower storage cost

AnyCompany Business stores a growing amount of customer data in Amazon S3. Their manager is concerned about storage costs and asks IT to implement a solution to move older data to cheaper storage. The data is frequently accessed for the first 30 days, occasionally accessed for the next 60 days, and rarely accessed after 90 days.

What should they do in this situation to optimize costs while maintaining appropriate access to the data?

Create a lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after 30 days, transition to S3 Glacier after 90 days.

Create a lifecycle rule to immediately transition all objects to S3 Glacier and set up a restore policy.

Create a lifecycle rule to delete all objects after 90 days and rely on database backups.

Create multiple S3 buckets with different storage classes and manually move objects between buckets as they age.

Create a lifecycle rule to transition objects to S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) after 30 days, transition to S3 Glacier after 90 days.

Which statement BEST describes S3 Lifecycle?

A backup service that creates copies of your S3 objects in different AWS Regions to protect against Regional failures.

A feature that automatically compresses Amazon S3 objects after a certain period to reduce storage costs.

A monitoring system that alerts administrators when Amazon S3 objects have not been accessed for a specified period.

A feature used to define rules to automatically transition objects between different storage classes, or delete them based on age or usage patterns.

A feature used to define rules to automatically transition objects between different storage classes, or delete them based on age or usage patterns.