When operating in the cloud, data storage and recovery are among the most crucial components. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a comprehensive array of services designed to meet various storage requirements, ranging from basic object storage to fully managed file systems, hybrid storage, and disaster recovery solutions. In this blog, we’ll explore key AWS services like AMI, S3, EBS, EFS, AWS Backup their purpose, use cases, and when to choose which.
Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
Let’s understand what is AMI.
So, AMI Amazon Machine Image is an a pre-configured template used to create your EC2 instance. It contains the operating system, application server, and applications required to launch an instance. Instead of manually configuring each instance, you can use an AMI Amazon Machine Image to launch a server with all the necessary software and configurations already set up.
Types of AMI’s:
AWS-provided AMIs (Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Windows)
Marketplace AMIs (3rd-party software)
Custom AMIs (your own configured servers)
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides scalable, high-performance block storage can attach to Amazon EC2 instances and data is divided into blocks and stored. It is designed for low-latency, high-performance workloads where applications need fast read/write access to blocks of data.
Key features of EBS
Block-Level Storage
Data is divided into blocks and stored.
The application can read/write specific blocks directly, making it ideal for databases and file systems.
Persistence
Here the data persists even if you stop or terminate the EC2 instance.
Snapshots (point-in-time backups) can be taken and stored in S3.
EC2 Attachment
Each EBS volume can be attached to an EC2 instance.
One volume one EC2 at a time (but you can detach and attach elsewhere).
Durability & Availability
Data is automatically replicated within an Availability Zone (AZ).
It ensures high durability and protection against hardware failures.
Use cases of EBS
Databases
MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Oracle, etc. need block storage for fast transactions.
EBS provides low latency and high throughput.
Boot Volumes
EC2 instances typically boot from an EBS root volume.
You can choose pre-built AMIs with EBS as the root storage.
The difference between EBS root volume and EBS?
Root Volume
Root volume is essential for launching and running the EC2 instance
By default if you terminate the root volume will also get deleted with the instance (Is an temporary storage).
Root volumes can be either instance store (ephemeral, data lost on termination) or EBS-backed.
Root volumes are used for the operating system boot files, and essential system components.
Here the root volume size is limited by the instance type.
EBS (Elastic Block Store)
Here EBS volume persists/stays even if you terminate the instance, but you can also choose to delete them.
EBS volumes provide extra storage for applications, data, and other files.
EBS volumes persist even if the instance is stopped or restarted.
It can be scaled up or down when needed.
It is used for application data, databases, and other files that need persistent storage.
It offers more flexibility for scaling storage capacity and adjusting performance
EFS (Elastic File System)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is a serverless, scalable, and cloud-based file storage service for AWS compute services and on-premises resources. It provides a shared file system that can be mounted simultaneously by multiple EC2 instances or containers, making it ideal for workloads that require concurrent access to the same data.
Use case:
Used for applications that need to share files across multiple compute instances.
Provides a common storage space for shared web content.
Offers shared storage for training and running machine learning models.
Key Features of EFS:
Elastic and Scalable:
Automatically grows and shrinks as you add or remove files.
No need to provision storage in advance.
Managed Service:
Fully managed by AWS — no hardware or infrastructure to maintain.
Shared Access:
Multiple instances or containers can access the same file system concurrently using the NFS protocol.
High Availability and Durability:
Data is stored across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) for redundancy.
Performance Modes:
General Purpose: For most applications (low-latency access).
Max I/O: For large-scale, highly parallel workloads.
Storage Classes:
Standard: For frequently accessed files.
Infrequent Access (EFS IA): Cost-effective for rarely accessed files.
Integration with AWS Services:
Works with EC2, ECS, Lambda, and other services requiring shared file storage.
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
Amazon S3 is a public cloud storage service in AWS that offers scalability, high availability, security, and strong performance. It provides object-based storage, where data is stored inside S3 buckets in distinct units called objects, rather than as traditional files.
Key Points:
Each bucket must be created in a specific region.
Bucket names must be globally unique across all regions and accounts.
Maximum storage of S3 Bucket is 5TB.
Use Cases:
Backup and Storage – Store and manage critical data securely.
Data Lakes and Analytics – Manage, analyze, and protect large amounts of data for cloud-native and mobile applications.
Disaster Recovery – In case a region goes down it replicates data across regions to ensure availability.
Archiving – You can archive and retrieve infrequently accessed data using cost-effective storage classes.
Types of S3 Storage Classes
S3 Standard:
This is the general-purpose storage for frequently accessed data it offers high durability, availability, and performance with low latency and high throughput. It is suitable for websites, content distribution, big data analytics, mobile and cloud applications.
S3 Intelligent-Tiering:
This class automatically moves objects between frequent and infrequent access tiers. It moves objects between frequent, infrequent, and archive instant access tiers based on monitoring, without performance impact or retrieval charges.
Cost: Optimizes cost automatically, minimal monitoring fee.
S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA):
Designed for data accessed less frequently but requires rapid access when needed. It offers lower storage costs than S3 Standard but higher retrieval costs. Used for backups, disaster recovery, long-term storage.
Cost: Lower storage cost than Standard, but retrieval has a fee.
S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA):
Similar to S3 Standard-IA but stores data in a single Availability Zone instead of multiple zones, but offers lower costs. Use Case – Secondary backups or easily re-creatable data.
Cost: Cheaper than Standard-IA, but lower redundancy.
S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval:
An archive storage class for data requiring immediate access, such as medical images or news media assets. It provides low-cost storage with millisecond retrieval times.
S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval:
A low-cost archive storage class for long-term data archiving, like backups and disaster recovery. Retrieval times range from minutes to hours depending on retrieval option.
S3 Glacier Deep Archive:
The lowest-cost storage class for long-term archiving, suitable for data accessed once or twice a year, such as compliance archives. Retrieval times are typically within 12 hours.
Cost: Lowest-cost storage for long-term retention.
AWS Backup
AWS Backup is a fully managed service in AWS that helps you to centrally back up and restore your data across AWS services. It simplifies the process of protecting your applications and data by automating backup scheduling, retention management, and compliance monitoring.
Key Features of AWS Backup:
Centralized Backup Management:
Manage backups for multiple AWS services (like EBS, RDS, DynamoDB, EFS, FSx) from a single place.
Automated Backup Scheduling:
Define backup plans and policies to automatically take backups at specified times.
Retention and Lifecycle Management:
Set rules for how long backups should be retained and automatically transition older backups to cheaper storage classes.
Cross-Region and Cross-Account Backups:
Copy backups to other AWS regions or accounts for disaster recovery and compliance purposes.
Data Protection and Compliance:
Helps meet regulatory requirements by providing auditing, logging, and encryption for backups.
On-Demand Backups:
Create manual backups whenever needed, in addition to scheduled backups.
Top comments (0)