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Difficulty: MediumHigh-Performing and Scalable Storage Solutions

A company operates a high-performance web application that runs on a fleet of Amazon EC2 instances distributed across multiple Availability Zones. The instances require shared access to a common directory to read and write media assets concurrently with sub-millisecond latency. The storage solution must scale automatically as data volume increases without requiring manual provisioning. Which storage solution should a solutions architect recommend?

  1. Create an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system and mount it on the EC2 instances.Answer
  2. B
    Provision an Amazon EBS General Purpose 3 (gp3) volume and configure it to be attached to all EC2 instances simultaneously.
  3. C
    Store the shared media assets in an Amazon S3 bucket and use a third-party file system driver to mount the bucket on each EC2 instance.
  4. D
    Provision an Amazon EBS Provisioned IOPS SSD (io2) volume, enable EBS Multi-Attach, and mount the volume to all EC2 instances across the Availability Zones.

Answer

Create an Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file system and mount it on the EC2 instances.
The correct answer is to create an Amazon EFS file system and mount it on the EC2 instances. Amazon EFS provides serverless, fully managed elastic file storage that supports concurrent read and write access from multiple EC2 instances across multiple Availability Zones using the NFSv4 protocol, meeting the sub-millisecond latency and automatic scaling requirements.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the application requirements: shared directory access, concurrent read and write operations, distribution across multiple Availability Zones, auto-scaling capability, and low latency.
The solution must support standard file protocol access (POSIX compliant) and multi-AZ concurrent mounts.
This filters out block storage solutions like standard EBS volumes that are single-AZ or single-instance restricted.
2
Evaluate Amazon EFS against the requirements.
Amazon EFS natively supports the Network File System (NFS) protocol, allows concurrent mounts from multiple AZs, scales storage automatically, and offers sub-millisecond latencies.
EFS fits the performance and scalability criteria perfectly.
3
Validate the alternative options to confirm their limitations.
EBS gp3 cannot be shared. EBS io2 Multi-Attach is restricted to a single AZ and requires specialized cluster software. Amazon S3 mounted via fuse lacks POSIX locks and does not meet sub-millisecond latency performance targets.
This confirms EFS is the correct and only viable architectural choice.

Key Concept

Shared file storage using Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) for multi-AZ EC2 fleets
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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Topics

High-Performing and Scalable Storage Solutions

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