Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
A few months back, I discussed our plans to introduce a persistent storage solution for Amazon EC2. At that time, the service was in a limited alpha phase with a select group of customers. Since then, our alpha testers have effectively utilized the service and provided valuable feedback.
Today, I’m excited to announce that the Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) is now fully available to all EC2 users. EBS offers persistent, high-performance, and highly available block-level storage that can be attached to a running EC2 instance. You have the flexibility to format it and mount it as a file system or access the raw storage directly. Hosting a database on an EBS volume is also entirely feasible.
EBS volumes range in size from 1 GB to 1 TB, and you can mount multiple volumes on the same instance, even striping (or RAID 0) your data across them for enhanced performance. These volumes can be attached to any single instance within a specific EC2 availability zone and are automatically replicated within that zone.
During the beta phase, users were able to create up to 20 EBS volumes, consuming a maximum of 20 TB of storage. You can easily create snapshots of a volume to Amazon S3, and if necessary, generate new volumes (of the same or different sizes) using the snapshot as a base. Keep in mind that if the new volume size does not match the snapshot volume, you’ll need to resize the new file system. When creating a new volume from an S3 snapshot, the data loads lazily, eliminating the need to wait for the snapshot to fully load.
EBS usage incurs charges based on storage and I/O requests. Storage costs $0.10 per GB per month, while I/O requests are billed at $0.10 per million. Snapshot storage follows Amazon S3 pricing. The AWS Simple Monthly Calculator has been updated to reflect these new features, making it easier for you to estimate costs.
You can access all EBS functionality through EC2 APIs, EC2 Command Line tools, ElasticFox, and several third-party tools and libraries. The popular ElasticFox extension for Firefox has been updated to support EBS fully, allowing you to view all your volumes and snapshots on a new tab. You can create volumes and attach them to running instances via user-friendly dialog boxes, and you can create a snapshot with just one click. Furthermore, generating a new volume from a snapshot is just as straightforward.
Support from third-party tools and libraries is already beginning to emerge. I have created a separate post titled “Amazon EBS – Tool and Library Support”, which I will update in the coming days as new announcements are made. Additionally, Amazon’s Chief Technology Officer, Mark Jacobs, has written an insightful post discussing the architectural and philosophical considerations behind our storage services.
In conclusion, this new feature is set to enhance your AWS experience. For those interested in learning more about inclusive hiring practices, check out this resource from SHRM, an authority on the topic. Also, if you’re navigating the complexities of pregnancy in the workplace, this blog post can provide valuable insights. Finally, if you’re starting your journey with Amazon, this is an excellent resource to help you through the first six months.
— Chanci Turner
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