Features of Elastic Block Service (EBS)

Features of Elastic Block Service (EBS)

Block-level storage: EBS provides block-level storage volumes, which can be attached to EC2 instances as devices similar to physical external hard drives. Elasticity: EBS volumes can be easily scaled up or scaled down based on users’ storage requirements, providing scalability and flexibility. Performance-Based Volume Types: EBS offers different volume types optimized for various workloads, including: General Purpose SSD (gp2/gp3): Suitable for normal workloads with a balance of price and performance. Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1/io2): Designed for I/O-intense workloads requiring consistent and predictable performance. Throughput Optimized HDD (st1): It is for large, continuous workloads such as data warehouses and log processing. Cold HDD (sc1): Frequently used for less frequently accessed workloads with large volumes of data. Snapshot and Backup: EBS allows users to create point-in-time snapshots of their volumes, which can be used for backup, disaster recovery purposes etc. High Availability and Durability: EBS volumes can be copied within an Availability Zone (AZ) to ensure high availability and durability. Additionally, you can create snapshots that are stored in Amazon S3 across multiple AZs for enhanced availability....

Step-By-Step Guide to Attach Single EBS To Multiple Instances

Note: AWS Provides attached features io1 and io2 volume types other types of volumes are not supported with this feature also io1 volume type is supported only in regions S East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Asia Pacific (Seoul). However, io2 is supported in almost all regions so in this guide we are going to io2 volume type....

Advantages of EBS (Elastic Block Storage)

Simple to Manage: EBS integrates seamlessly with Amazon EC2 instances and other AWS services for a smooth user experience. user can gain insights into volume performance and its usage details with detailed monitoring Cost Optimized: EBS Follows Pay-as-you-go model user have to Only pay for the storage they use, making it cost-effective. Different volume types comes with different performance and cost needs, allowing user to choose the most economical option for their workload. High Performance: EBS delivers low latency and high throughput for demanding applications, ensuring smooth performance. Developers Productivity: Developers can manage EBS volumes programmatically through the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) or API for automation and integration with DevOps operations...

Disadvantages of EBS (Elastic Block Storage)

EBS Volumes cannot be attached to the ec2 instance which is in different region than the EBS volumes are. means EBS volumes and EC2 instances must be in same region. Some Instance Types does not support certain types of EC2 instances. like Provisioned IOPS (io1) volumes may be not supported some instance types An EC2 instance can only be attached to a limited number of EBS volumes, and the maximum number of volumes depends on the instance type. Attaching and detaching EBS volumes may incur some downtime or affect the performance of the instance, especially if the volume is heavily utilized. There may be costs associated with data transfer between EC2 instances and attached EBS volumes, especially if the EC2 instance and EBS volume are in different Availability Zones within the same region....

Challenges of Multi-Instance Attachment

Concurrency & Consistency Challenge: EBS volumes are designed to be attached to a single EC2 instance at a time. Attaching the same EBS volume to multiple instances introduces concurrency issues and can lead to data corruption or inconsistency. Network Challenges: EBS volumes are network based storage device that communicate with EC2 instances over the network, therefore when multiple instances uses single EBS volume. the network bandwidth is highly used resulting into high latency and decrease in network performance Data Integrity Challenges: sharing access to the same EBS volume across multiple instances highly increases the risk of data corruption and integrity issues. Concurrent read and write operations from multiple instances on one EBS volume leads to unintended data modifications High Availability and Fault Tolerance Challenge: EBS volume can be attached to a multiple EC2 instances within a same availability zone only. multi-instance cannot be designed to achieve high availability or fault tolerance. as the EBS volume residing in a one availability zone cannot be attached to multiple instances with other availability zone Performance Issues: EBS volumes has certain limits in terms of IOPS (Input Output Per Second) When multiple instances share access to the same EBS volume they are highly utilized because of this high utilization it leads to performance issues of EBS volumes....

Basic Examples of Elastic Block Storage

1. Attaching EBS Volume to an EC2 Instance...

Applications of Single EBS Volume to Multi-Instance Attachments

Shared Data Cluster: In some cases, users may have a requirement to share read only data across multiple EC2 instances. for example you might have a large dataset that needs to be processed. to reduce time consumption it can be achieved by creating cluster of multiple instances by sharing it on single EBS volume. However, it’s essential to ensure that the data is not modified by any of the instances to maintain data integrity. Distributed Computing: User might implement a distributed file system on top of a shared EBS volume to provide shared storage across multiple instances. Distributed file systems like NFS (Network File System) can be configured to use an EBS volume as shared storage accessible by multiple instances. Temporary Storage for Stateless Applications: In some cases, user may have a need of temporary storage space across multiple instances. For example, users might have a batch processing job that requires temporary storage for immediate results A shared EBS volume could be used for this purpose, with appropriate cleanup mechanisms in place to reclaim space after the job is complete. Centralized Storage: Attaching a single EBS volume to multiple instances can also be used for centralized storage for example, users might use a shared EBS volume to store logs generated by multiple EC2 instances in a centralized location. This could simplify log management by storing logs from multiple instances in one place...

Conclusion

Attaching a single Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume to multiple instances is not a typical or recommended configuration in Amazon Web Services (AWS). EBS volumes are designed to be attached to a single Amazon EC2 instance at a time. Each volume is associated with a specific instance to provide block-level storage for that instance....

How to Attach Single EBS TO multiple Instances? – FAQs

Which instance types support Multi-Attach?...