A company is migrating a legacy document management system to AWS. The system runs on a fl… — AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

A company is migrating a legacy document management system to AWS. The system runs on a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances deployed across multiple Availability Zones in an Auto Scaling group. The system requires a shared, POSIX-compliant storage volume where multiple instances can concurrently read and write file data. The workload is highly unpredictable, with throughput demands spiking from a baseline of $10\text{ MiB/s}$ up to $450\text{ MiB/s}$ during business peak hours. The solution must deliver low latency and scale performance automatically without manual intervention or over-provisioning. Which storage configuration provides the highest performance and meets these scalability requirements?

An Amazon EFS file system configured with Elastic throughput modeAnswer
B
An Amazon EBS gp3 volume mounted using Amazon EBS Multi-Attach across the EC2 instances in different Availability Zones
C
An Amazon EBS io2 volume configured with Multi-Attach, formatted with a standard ext4 file system, and attached to all EC2 instances
D
An Amazon EFS file system configured with Provisioned throughput mode set to $450\text{ MiB/s}$

Answer

An Amazon EFS file system configured with Elastic throughput mode

The correct option is Amazon EFS with Elastic throughput mode because it natively supports shared, concurrent POSIX file access across multiple Availability Zones. Elastic throughput automatically scales up and down based on real-time application demands, successfully supporting throughput spikes from

10\text{ MiB/s}

450\text{ MiB/s}

without manual capacity management or paying for idle provisioned capacity.

Step-by-Step Solution

Analyze the application's environment and access requirements.

The application runs on Amazon EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group across multiple Availability Zones, requiring shared, POSIX-compliant storage with concurrent read/write access.

This rules out Amazon EBS because EBS volumes are single-AZ resources and do not provide a POSIX-compliant shared file system natively across multiple AZs.

Analyze the workload's performance profile and throughput variability.

Throughput demands are highly variable and unpredictable, spiking from

10\text{ MiB/s}

450\text{ MiB/s}

This points to Amazon EFS. To handle unpredictable spikes without over-provisioning, Elastic throughput mode is required, as it automatically scales throughput based on workload demand.

Compare Amazon EFS throughput modes to select the optimal solution.

Amazon EFS with Elastic throughput mode dynamically handles the

10\text{ MiB/s}

450\text{ MiB/s}

range automatically. Provisioned throughput at

450\text{ MiB/s}

would meet the demand but result in significant over-provisioning costs.

Elastic throughput matches both performance requirements and cost optimization guidelines by scaling dynamically without manual provisioning.

Key Concept

Amazon EFS with Elastic Throughput provides a shared POSIX file system across multiple Availability Zones that dynamically scales throughput to match unpredictable workloads without administrative overhead or over-provisioning.

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