Services - Storage

Question 1

FSx - Characteristics

Answer 1

• Provides a managed third-party FS with the native compatibility and feature sets for workloads such as Microsoft Windows–based storage, high-performance computing, ML, and electronic design automation
• Supports three file system types: Lustre, NetApp ONTAP, and Windows File Server
• Provides incremental backups
• Automatically encrypts data at rest using KMS keys, and data in transit using SMB Kerberos session keys

Question 2

FSx - FSx for NetApp ONTAP

Answer 2

• Provides fast and flexible shared file storage (SSD) accessible from Linux, Windows, and macOS compute instances running in AWS or on-premises
• Supports NFS, SMB, and iSCSI protocols. Provides Multi-AZ deployments
• Provides automatic data tiering, based on access frequency, to reduce costs
• Offers data compression, deduplication, and compaction to reduce storage consumption

Question 3

FSx - FSx for Windows File Server

Answer 3

• Provides managed Microsoft Windows file servers, backed by a native Windows FS
• The primary resources are FS and backups. A FS is made up of one or more Windows file servers and storage volumes
• Components:
• Windows file servers: A FS can have one or more Windows File Servers
• Storage volumes

Question 4

FSx - FSx for Lustre

Answer 4

• Open source Lustre FS is used for workloads where speed matters, such as ML, high performance computing (HPC), video processing, and financial modeling
• Data compression feature automatically compresses new files before they are written, and automatically uncompresses them when they are read
• Can be linked to S3 buckets, and on-premises data stores
• EC2 instances, and containers running ECS / EKS can access to FSx for Lustre FS

Question 5

Storage Gateway - Characteristics 1

Answer 5

• It enables hybrid cloud storage use cases
• On-premise services permitted:
• File storage, Volume storage, and Tape storage
• AWS services permitted:
• S3, S3 Glacier, S3 Glacier Deep Archive
• EBS snapshots
• All the gateway types support a virtual machine, an EC2 instance or a hardware appliance

Question 6

Storage Gateway - Characteristics 2

Answer 6

• Supports multiple protocols: NFS, SMB, and iSCSI
• Allows Local caching for on-premises applications
• Provides optimized data transfers
• Offers encryption in transit
• Can connect on-premise with AWS using HTTPS, AWS Direct Connect, or AWS VPN

Question 7

Storage Gateway - Types

Answer 7

• File gateway: by using NFS or SMB protocol it first looks into Local cache, otherwise goes to S3
• Volume gateway
• Tape gateway

Question 8

Storage Gateway - Volume gateway

Answer 8

• The application use iSCSI to request for a target where a stored or cached volume exist in the on-premise. Then goes into the respective AWS service
• EBS snapshots can be generated once the request is done or according to schedules (incremental backups that capture only the changes)
• The upload buffer is a staging area where modified data is stored previous to transfer it to AWS Storage Gateway, and then to S3

Question 9

Storage Gateway - Volume gateway modes

Answer 9

• Cached mode: a cached volume that stores frequently accessed data. In AWS volume stores can be created up to 32 GB size
• Stored mode: all the data is stored in on-premise. Asynchronous backups are performed in S3, as EBS snapshots

Question 10

Storage Gateway - Tape gateway

Answer 10

• Works with an existing backup application known as Virtual Tape Library (virtual media changer or virtual tape drives)
• Can work with an existing virtual tape application
• Each virtual tape is stored in S3. If no longer needed can be moved to S3 Glacier / S3 Glacier Deep Archive
• Not accessible to users outside of Storage Gateway

Question 11

Storage Gateway - Pricing

Answer 11

• File gateway (S3): charged by storage, request and data transfer pricing
• Volume gateway: charged by storage (S3 and EBS snapshots) and request and data transfer pricing
• Tape gateway (S3 Glacier / S3 Glacier Deep Archive): charged by storage (S3 and EBS snapshots) and request and data transfer pricing