Amazon EFS and Storage Solutions Comparison

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)

• Provides simple, scalable, elastic file storage for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises applications.
• EFS scales on demand without interrupting applications.
• Automatically grows and shrinks as files are added or removed.

Amazon S3 vs EFS vs EBS Comparison

• Amazon S3 provides object storage and is accessible via the web interface. It is scalable and good for storing backups.
• Amazon EBS provides block storage and is accessible only via the EC2 machine. It is hardly scalable but faster than S3 and EFS and meant for use as an EC2 drive.
• Amazon EFS provides object storage and is accessible via multiple EC2 machines and applications. It is scalable, faster than S3, and slower than EBS. It's good for shared applications and workloads.

Amazon Glacier

• Provides secure, durable, and low-cost storage for data archiving and long-term retention.
• Can store data for $0.004 perGB per month.
• Offers 99.999999999% durability.
• Allows data queries in place.

Amazon RDS

• A managed service for setting up and operating a relational database in the cloud.
• Makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud.
• Offers six database engines: Amazon Aurora, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server.
• Customers manage application optimisation, database schema, and data.
• AWS manages OS installation and patches, database software installation and patches, database backups, high availability, scaling, power, and server maintenance.

Amazon Aurora

• A MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible relational database built for the cloud.
• Combines the performance and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open-source databases.

AWS Storage Solutions

• Includes file storage solutions like Amazon EFS.
• Includes block storage solutions like Amazon EBS, Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, and Instance Store.
• Includes object storage solutions Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier.

Data Transfer

• Includes AWS Direct Connect, AWS ISV, Snowball Connectors, Amazon Kinesis Firehose, Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, and AWS Storage Gateway.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)

• Object storage with a simple web service interface for storing and retrieving data.
• Offers 99.999999999% durability and stores data for millions of applications.
• Stores data redundantly across multiple facilities and devices in each facility.
• Supports data transfer over SSL and automatic encryption of data.
• Enables configuring bucket policies to manage object permissions and control access.
• Allows storing large amounts of data at a low cost.
• Provides options to host static websites.
• Offers the ability to keep data private or public.
• Uses buckets to store objects, consisting of data and metadata describing the content.
• Can be used for backup and recovery services.

Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)

• Persistent block storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances in the AWS Cloud.
• Each volume is automatically replicated within its Availability Zone to protect against component failure, offering high availability and durability.
• Allows scaling usage up or down within minutes.
• Offers flexible access control policies to specify access to EBS volumes.
• Provides secure access to data.
• Allows creating snapshots of EBS volumes, which are stored in Amazon S3 for long-term durability.

Amazon DynamoDB

• A fast and flexible NoSQL database service for applications needing single-digit millisecond latency at any scale.
• Offers virtually unlimited storage.
• Provides scalable read/write throughput.
• Fully managed cloud database supporting document and key-value store models.
• Can be integrated with AWS Lambda to provide Triggers that automatically react to data changes.
• Performs efficient item lookup with QUERY by key.
• Performs attribute-based item searches with SCAN.

Amazon ElastiCache

• Makes it easy to deploy, operate, and scale in-memory caching in the cloud.
• Improves web application performance by retrieving information from managed, in-memory caches instead of relying on disk-based databases.
• Supports two open-source in-memory caching engines: Redis & Memcached.

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC)

• Provides a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch AWS resources and define a network.
• Offers complete control over the virtual networking environment, including selection of IP address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network gateways.
• Allows creating a public-facing subnet with internet access and a private-facing subnet with access to backend systems with limited access.

Amazon CloudFront

• Content delivery network (CDN) service that accelerates website, API, video, and other web asset delivery.
• Delivers content using a global network of edge locations.
• Automatically routes requests to the nearest edge location.

Amazon Route 53

• A highly available and scalable cloud Domain Name System (DNS) web service.
• Routes requests to different endpoints.
• Also offers Domain Name Registration for purchasing and managing domains.

Elastic Load Balancing

Application Load Balancer (ALB)

• Supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols.

• Offers flexible application management.

• Provides advanced load balancing of HTTP and HTTPS traffic.

• Operates at the request level (Layer 7).

  Network Load Balancer (NLB)

• Supports TCP protocol.

• Provides extreme performance and a static IP for applications.

• Load balances TCP traffic.

• Operates at the connection level (Layer 4).

  Classic Load Balancer (CLB)

• Previous generation for HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP.

• Supports existing applications built within the EC2-Classic network.

• Operates at both the request and connection level.

Amazon CloudWatch

• Monitoring service for AWS Cloud resources and applications running on AWS.
• Collects and tracks metrics.
• Collects and monitors log files.
• Sets alarms and automatically reacts to changes in AWS resources.

AWS Auto Scaling

• Verifies the correct number of Amazon EC2 instances are available to handle application load.
• Monitors applications and automatically adjusts capacity for steady performance at the lowest cost.
• Ensures applications have the right resources at the right time.
• Monitors resource performance using Amazon CloudWatch and uses AWS Auto Scaling to add or remove Amazon EC2 instances.

AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

• Secures access to AWS services and resources.
• Enables creating and managing AWS users and groups, and uses permissions to allow or deny access to AWS resources.
• Recommends not using root user credentials for daily work.
• Encourages creating IAM users (users and roles).

AWS Interaction Tools

• Provides several tools to create and manage resources.
• Offers the AWS Management Console, a graphical user interface accessible at https://console.aws.amazon.com.
• Offers the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), a text-based tool that can be installed on a computer and used to manage AWS resources.
• Offers Software Development Kits (SDKs), class libraries, and tools that can be added to applications to interact with AWS resources.
• Offers Query APIs, low-level APIs exposed online through service- and region-specific endpoints for sending HTTP requests to manage API actions.

This quiz explores Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), as well as comparing it with Amazon S3 and EBS. You'll learn about the scalability, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness of various AWS storage solutions including Amazon Glacier. Test your knowledge on these cloud storage services and their applications.