AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional · Free Practice Question Hard
Question 3
A company is setting up a new big data analytics cluster on AWS, which will operate on numerous Linux Amazon EC2 instances distributed across several Availability Zones. The cluster requires a shared file storage system that all nodes can read from and write to. This storage must not only be highly available and resilient but also POSIX-compliant and capable of handling substantial throughput levels.
What storage solution should be adopted to fulfill these criteria?
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A
Establish a new Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) using the Max I/O performance mode and mount this EFS file system on each EC2 instance in the cluster.
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B
Create a new Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) using the General Purpose performance mode and mount this EFS file system on each EC2 instance in the cluster.
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C
Provision a new Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume with the io2 volume type and attach this EBS volume to every EC2 instance in the cluster.
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D
Set up an AWS Storage Gateway file gateway with an NFS file share linked to an Amazon S3 bucket and mount this NFS file share on each EC2 instance in the cluster.
Reveal correct answer
Correct answer: A
Explanation
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is designed for scenarios requiring a shared file system across multiple instances and Availability Zones. It is POSIX-compliant, making it suitable for a wide range of applications and use cases, including big data analytics.
The Max I/O performance mode is specifically optimized for high levels of throughput and I/O operations, which is essential for big data workloads that involve processing large datasets. By mounting the EFS file system on each EC2 instance, the cluster can efficiently share and access data with the required performance and resilience.
CORRECT: "Establish a new Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) using the Max I/O performance mode and mount this EFS file system on each EC2 instance in the cluster" is the correct answer (as explained above.)
INCORRECT: "Set up an AWS Storage Gateway file gateway with an NFS file share linked to an Amazon S3 bucket and mount this NFS file share on each EC2 instance in the cluster" is incorrect.
While this setup provides a way to integrate on-premises environments with cloud storage, it's not optimized for high-throughput scenarios typically associated with big data analytics clusters.
INCORRECT: "Create a new Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) using the General Purpose performance mode and mount this EFS file system on each EC2 instance in the cluster" is incorrect.
The General Purpose performance mode is suitable for a broad range of use cases but might not offer the throughput levels required for intensive big data analytics workloads compared to the Max I/O performance mode.
INCORRECT: "Provision a new Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume with the io2 volume type and attach this EBS volume to every EC2 instance in the cluster" is incorrect.
EBS provides high-performance block storage, but it's not designed for scenarios where storage needs to be shared across multiple EC2 instances. EBS volumes are tied to a single instance, which limits their suitability for distributed big data clusters.
References:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/efs/latest/ug/whatisefs.html
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