What is Amazon EBS?
Amazon Elastic Block Store, commonly known as EBS, is a significant component of Amazon Web Services (AWS) storage services, offering a versatile and reliable solution for managing data storage in the cloud. EBS allows users to create and attach block storage volumes to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, making it an integral part of building scalable and high-performance applications on the AWS platform.
Features of EBS
● Scalability:
EBS allows easy storage scaling to
match application requirements by creating new volumes or increasing the size
of existing ones through the AWS Management Console.
● Backup
and Snapshot: Robust data protection
with manual or scheduled snapshots stored in Amazon S3. Snapshots are
incremental, saving changes since the last snapshot and optimizing costs.
● Encryption:
EBS supports encryption with AES-256
through AWS Key Management Service (KMS), ensuring data security. Encrypted
volumes attach only to specific instance types.
● Charges: EBS pricing depends on allocated storage
capacity, not actual usage. If you allocate 5 GB but use only 1 GB, you're
charged for the full 5 GB volume. Charges vary by AWS region.
● High Availability: EBS volumes are independent of EC2 instances and survive reboots or terminations. However, they are tied to specific availability zones, attaching only to EC2 instances in the same zone.
Types of EBS Volumes
- SSD (Solid State Drive)
● General
Purpose SSD (GP2): Suitable for
applications requiring low latency and moderate I/O performance. It offers
burstable IOPS (input/output operations per second) and scalable throughput.
● Provisioned IOPS SSD (IO1): Designed for IO-intensive workloads, IO1 volumes allow users to specify the exact IOPS requirements, making them ideal for mission-critical applications.
- HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
● Cold HDD
(SC1): Cost-effective and
suitable for storing extensive, infrequently accessed data.
● Throughput Optimized HDD (ST1): Best for large, frequently accessed data with a focus on delivering consistent throughput.
Use Cases for EBS
● Database
Storage: EBS is a go-to choice for storing data in relational and
NoSQL databases due to its low latency and scalability.
● Business-Critical
Applications: Its snapshot-based
backup system ensures efficient recovery and minimal data loss, making it
suitable for mission-critical applications.
● EC2
Server Storage: EBS volumes can
serve as independent hard drives for EC2 instances, guaranteeing data safety
even in the face of instance failures.
● Hosting
Large Applications: With low-latency
access and scalability, EBS is perfect for hosting large enterprise
applications and their data.
● Root Volumes for EC2: GP2 and IO1 EBS volumes can be used as root volumes for EC2 instances, providing a solid foundation for your cloud-based servers.
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