Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) provides simple, scalable file storage for use with AWS services like EC2. It allows sharing of file systems across multiple EC2 instances and provides simple integration with existing tools. File systems can grow and shrink automatically as storage needs change. EFS uses NFS v4 for access and stores data redundantly across Availability Zones for high availability and durability. Security features include controlling access via security groups, user-level permissions, and IAM policies. Pricing is $0.30 per GB per month with no minimum commitments.

1. ©2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved
Amazon Elastic File System
(Amazon EFS)
Danilo Poccia, AWS Technical Evangelist
@danilop

2. The AWS storage portfolio
Amazon S3
• Object storage: Data presented as buckets of objects
• Data access via APIs over the Internet
Amazon
EFS
• File storage (analogous to NAS): Data presented as a file system
• Shared low-latency access from multiple EC2 instances
Amazon
Elastic Block
Store
• Block storage (analogous to SAN): Data presented as disk volumes
• Lowest-latency access from single Amazon EC2 instances
Amazon
Glacier
• Archival storage: Data presented as vaults/archives of objects
• Lowest-cost storage, infrequent access via APIs over the Internet

3. We focused on changing the game
Amazon EFS
is simple
Amazon EFS
is elastic
Amazon EFS
is scalable
1 2 3

4. Amazon EFS is simple
• Fully managed
– No hardware, network, file layer
– Create a scalable file system in seconds!
• Seamless integration with existing
tools and apps
– NFS v4—widespread, open
– Standard file system semantics
– Works with standard OS file system APIs
• Simple pricing = simple forecasting
1

5. Amazon EFS is elastic
• File systems grow and shrink
automatically as you add and remove
files
• No need to provision storage capacity
or performance
• You pay only for the storage space you
use, with no minimum fee
2

6. • File systems can grow to petabyte
scale
• Throughput and IOPS scale
automatically as file systems grow
• Consistent low latencies regardless
of file system size
• Support for thousands of concurrent
NFS connections
Amazon EFS is scalable3

7. <demo>
. . .
</demo>

8. Diving In

9. What is a file system?
• The primary resource in Amazon EFS
• Where you store files and directories

10. How to access a file system from an instance
• You “mount” a file system on an EC2 instance
(standard command); the file system appears like a
local set of directories and files
• An NFS v4 client is standard on Linux distributions
mount –t nfs4
[file system DNS name]:/
/[user’s target directory]

11. What is a mount target?
• To access your file
system from instances in
a VPC, you create mount
targets in the VPC
• A mount target is an NFS
v4 endpoint in your VPC
• A mount target has an IP
address and a DNS
name you use in your
mount command
AVAILABILITY ZONE 1
REGION
AVAILABILITY ZONE 2
AVAILABILITY ZONE 3
VPC
EC2
EC2
EC2
EC2
Mount
target

12. How does it all fit together?
AVAILABILITY ZONE 1
REGION
AVAILABILITY ZONE 2
AVAILABILITY ZONE 3
VPC
EC2
EC2
EC2
EC2
Customer’s file
system

13. There are three ways to set up and
manage a file system
• AWS Management Console
• AWS Command Line Interface (CLI)
• AWS Software Development Kit (SDK)

14. Securing Your File System

15. Only EC2 instances in the VPC you specify can access
your Amazon EFS file system
Customer’s file
system
VPC
EC2
EC2
EC2
EC2
VPC
EC2
EC2
EC2
EC2

16. VPC
EC2
EC2
Security groups control which instances in your VPC
can connect to your mount targets
Customer’s file
system
Security group:
sg-allowed
Security group:
Permit inbound traffic
from “sg-allowed”
Security group:
sg-not-allowed

17. Amazon EFS supports user-level file and directory
access permissions
• Set file/directory permissions to specify read-write-
execute permissions for users and groups

18. Integration with IAM provides administrative security
• Use IAM policies to control who can use
the administrative APIs to create, manage,
and delete file systems
• Amazon EFS supports action-level and
resource-level permissions

19. Data is stored in multiple AZs for high availability
and durability
• Every file
system object
(directory, file,
and link) is
redundantly
stored across
multiple AZs in
a region
AVAILABILITY
ZONE 1
REGION
AVAILABILITY
ZONE 2
AVAILABILITY
ZONE 3
Amazon
EFS

20. Data can be accessed from any AZ in the region
while maintaining full consistency
• Your EC2 instances
can connect to your
Amazon EFS file
system from any AZ in
a region
• All reads and writes will
be fully consistent in all
AZs; that is, a read in
one AZ is guaranteed
to have the latest data,
even if the data is
being written in another
AZ
AVAILABILITY
ZONE 1
REGION
VPC
EC2
EC2
EC2
AVAILABILITY
ZONE 2
AVAILABILITY
ZONE 3
EC2
Write
Read

21. <demo>
. . .
</demo>

22. Shared Website

23. Web Server Web ServerWeb Server
Load
Balancer
File
System

24. Wrapping Up

25. Simple and predictable pricing
• With Amazon EFS, you pay only for the storage space you use
– No minimum commitments or up-front fees
– No need to provision storage in advance
– No other fees, charges, or billing dimensions
• Amazon EFS price: $0.30/GB-month

26. What to do next?
• Learn more at aws.amazon.com/efs
• Request an invite for our preview

27. BARCELONA
Danilo Poccia, AWS Technical Evangelist
@danilop