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AWS FSx

Links: 101 AWS SAA Index

AWS FSx

  • Launch 3rd party high performance file systems on AWS
  • Fully managed service
  • All FSx and EFS are file storage solutions.
    • For example EBS and instance are block storage solutions.

FSx for windows file server

  • EFS is only available for linux systems.
    • So if you want to share data between windows systems you have to use FSx for windows.
  • It is a fully managed windows file share.
  • Supports SMB and Windows NTFS sharing formats
  • Shared storage for windows EC2 instances.
  • Supports Microsoft Active Directory integration, ACLs, user quotas
  • Supports Microsoft's Distributed File System (DFS) Namespaces (group files across multiple FS)
  • Storage Options:
    • SSD - latency sensitive workloads (databases, media processing, data analytics, etc)
    • HDD - broad spectrum of workloads (home directory, CMS, etc)
  • Can be accessed from your on-premise infrastructure (VPN or Direct Connect)
    • attachments/Pasted image 20220424204638.jpg
  • Can be configured to be Multi-AZ.
    • Always choose Multi-AZ for high HA.
  • Data is backed-up daily to S3
  • Windows instances cannot be connected to EFS but Linux instances can be connected to windows file share.
Although from the name it may look like that FSx windows file server is for windows, it can be mounted on Linux EC2 instances.

FSx for Lustre

  • It is a type of parallel distributed file system for large scale computing.
  • Lustre is derived from Linux and Cluster.
  • It is used for ML and HPC (high performance computing)
  • It has seamless integration with S3 for Cold data.
    • Hot data is stored in lustre.
  • It is POSIX compliant.
  • Storage Options:
    • SSD - low-latency, IOPS intensive workloads, small & random file operations
    • HDD - throughput-intensive workloads, large & sequential file operations
  • There are 2 types of file systems in lustre
  • Can be used from on-premises servers (VPN or Direct Connect).

Scratch File System

  • Temporary storage
  • Data is not replicated (doesn't persist if file server fails)
  • High burst (6x faster, 200MBps per TiB)
  • Usage: short-term processing, optimise costs

Persistent File System

  • Long-term storage
  • Data is replicated within same AZ
  • Usage: long-term processing, sensitive data
In any FSx for Lustre data will only live within one AZ.

Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP

  • Managed NetApp ONTAP on AWS
  • File System compatible with NFS, SMB, iSCSI protocol
  • Move workloads running on ONTAP or NAS to AWS
  • It has very broad compatibility.
  • Storage shrinks or grows automatically.
  • Snapshots, replication, low-cost, compression and data de-duplication
  • Point-in-time instantaneous cloning (helpful for testing new workloads)

Amazon FSx for OpenZFS

  • Managed OpenZFS file system on AlVS
  • File System compatible with NFS.
  • Move workloads running on ZFS to AWS
  • It has very broad compatibility.
  • Up to 1,000,000 lOPS with < 0.5ms latency
  • Snapshots, compression and low-cost
  • Point-in-time instantaneous cloning (helpful for testing new workloads)

Last updated: 2023-03-10