AWS DVA Notes - Day 1 : EBS (Elastic Block Storage)

What is an EBS Volume?

EBS - Elastic Block Storage

An EBS Volume is a network drive you can attach to your instances while they run.

It allows your instance to persist data, even after their termination.

They are bound to a specific availability zone (AZ).

Analogy: think of them as a “network USB stick”

Summary:

• It’s a network drive - NOT a physical drive: It use network to communicate the instance, which means there might be a bit of latency. It can be dettached from an EC2 instance and attached to another one quickly.

• It is locked to an Availability Zone: eg. an EBS volume in us-east-1a can not be attached to us-east-1b => To move a volume across AZ, you first need to snapshot it

EBS Snapshot

EBS is snapshot is a point-in-time copy of your data. It can be used to:

• Enable disaster recovery

• Migrate data across regions/AZ or accounts

• Improve backup compliance

We can create and manage EBS snapshots through AWS Management Console, SDK, CLI.

Amazon EBS Snapshots also integrate with Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM), which allows you to define policies that help you automate snapshot lifecycle management.

EBS Snapshots Archive

Archiving Amazon EBS snapshots to save costs while retaining backup data for long-term storage. Move a snapshot to “Archive tier” that is 75% cheaper.

Take within 24 to 72 hours for restoring a snapshot.

Summary: EBS Snapshots Archive provides a strategic way to manage backup data in a cost-effective manner while ensuring that important snapshots are retained for future use. This feature is especially useful for businesses looking to balance storage costs with data retention needs.

Recicle Bin for EBS Snapshots

Setup rule to retain deleted snapshots so you can recover them after an accidental deletion. You can specify retention from 1 day to 1 year.

Summary: The EBS Snapshot Recycle Bin enhances data protection by providing a recovery option for deleted snapshots, reducing the risk of data loss and improving operational efficiency in managing EBS snapshots. This feature is an essential tool for organizations that rely on EBS for storage and backup solutions.

Fast Snapshot Restore (FSR)

Fast Snapshot Restore (FSR) is a feature of Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) that allows you to quickly restore EBS volumes from snapshots.

Summary: Fast Snapshot Restore enhances the usability of EBS snapshots by significantly reducing the time it takes to make volumes available. This feature is ideal for scenarios where performance and quick recoverability are critical, making it a valuable tool for organizations leveraging AWS for their cloud infrastructure.