Module 5: Storage and Databases
6 Available Amazon RDS database engines
- Amazon Aurora - PostgreSQL - MySQL - MariaDB - Oracle Database - Microsoft SQL Server
S3 Standard
- Designed for frequently accessed data - Stores data in a minimum of three Availability Zones S3 Standard provides high availability for objects. This makes it a good choice for a wide range of use cases, such as websites, content distribution, and data analytics. S3 Standard has a higher cost than other storage classes intended for infrequently accessed data and archival storage.
Other use cases for AWS DMS
- Development and test database migrations - Database consolidation - Continuous replication
Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (Amazon QLDB)
Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (Amazon QLDB) is a ledger database service. You can use Amazon QLDB to review a complete history of all the changes that have been made to your application data.
S3 Intelligent-Tiering
- Ideal for data with unknown or changing access patterns - Requires a small monthly monitoring and automation fee per object In the S3 Intelligent-Tiering storage class, Amazon S3 monitors objects' access patterns. If you haven't accessed an object for 30 consecutive days, Amazon S3 automatically moves it to the infrequent access tier, S3 Standard-IA. If you access an object in the infrequent access tier, Amazon S3 automatically moves it to the frequent access tier, S3 Standard.
S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)
- Ideal for infrequently accessed data - Similar to S3 Standard but has a lower storage price and higher retrieval price S3 Standard-IA is ideal for data infrequently accessed but requires high availability when needed. Both S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA store data in a minimum of three Availability Zones. S3 Standard-IA provides the same level of availability as S3 Standard but with a lower storage price and a higher retrieval price.
S3 Glacier
- Low-cost storage designed for data archiving - Able to retrieve objects within a few minutes to hours S3 Glacier is a low-cost storage class that is ideal for data archiving. For example, you might use this storage class to store archived customer records or older photos and video files.
S3 Glacier Deep Archive
- Lowest-cost object storage class ideal for archiving - Able to retrieve objects within 12 hours When deciding between Amazon S3 Glacier and Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive, consider how quickly you need to retrieve archived objects. You can retrieve objects stored in the S3 Glacier storage class within a few minutes to a few hours. By comparison, you can retrieve objects stored in the S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class within 12 hours.
6 Amazon S3 storage classes
- S3 Standard - S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) - S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA) - S3 Intelligent-Tiering - S3 Glacier - S3 Glacier Deep Archive
S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA)
- Stores data in a single Availability Zone - Has a lower storage price than S3 Standard-IA Compared to S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA, which store data in a minimum of three Availability Zones, S3 One Zone-IA stores data in a single Availability Zone. This makes it a good storage class to consider if the following conditions apply: - You want to save costs on storage. - You can easily reproduce your data in the event of an Availability Zone failure.
Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator
Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) is an in-memory cache for DynamoDB. It helps improve response times from single-digit milliseconds to microseconds.
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS)
AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS) enables you to migrate relational databases, nonrelational databases, and other types of data stores. With AWS DMS, you move data between a source database and a target database. The source and target databases can be of the same type or different types. During the migration, your source database remains operational, reducing downtime for any applications that rely on the database. For example, suppose that you have a MySQL database that is stored on premises in an Amazon EC2 instance or in Amazon RDS. Consider the MySQL database to be your source database. Using AWS DMS, you could migrate your data to a target database, such as an Amazon Aurora database.
Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora is an enterprise-class relational database. It is compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL relational databases. It is up to five times faster than standard MySQL databases and up to three times faster than standard PostgreSQL databases. Amazon Aurora helps to reduce your database costs by reducing unnecessary input/output (I/O) operations, while ensuring that your database resources remain reliable and available. Consider Amazon Aurora if your workloads require high availability. It replicates six copies of your data across three Availability Zones and continuously backs up your data to Amazon S3.
Amazon DocumentDB
Amazon DocumentDB is a document database service that supports MongoDB workloads. (MongoDB is a document database program.)
Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value (non-relational) database service. It delivers single-digit millisecond performance at any scale. Features: - Automatic Scaling - Serverless
Amazon ElastiCache
Amazon ElastiCache is a service that adds caching layers on top of your databases to help improve the read times of common requests. It supports two types of data stores: Redis and Memcached.
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is a service that provides block-level storage volumes that you can use with Amazon EC2 instances. If you stop or terminate an Amazon EC2 instance, all the data on the attached EBS volume remains available. To create an EBS volume, you define the configuration (such as volume size and type) and provision it. After you create an EBS volume, it can attach to an Amazon EC2 instance. Because EBS volumes are for data that needs to persist, it's important to back up the data. You can take incremental backups of EBS volumes by creating Amazon EBS snapshots.
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS)
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is a scalable file system used with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. As you add and remove files, Amazon EFS grows and shrinks automatically. It can scale on demand to petabytes without disrupting applications.
Amazon Managed Blockchain
Amazon Managed Blockchain is a service that you can use to create and manage blockchain networks with open-source frameworks. Blockchain is a distributed ledger system that lets multiple parties run transactions and share data without a central authority.
Amazon Neptune
Amazon Neptune is a graph database service. You can use Amazon Neptune to build and run applications that work with highly connected datasets, such as recommendation engines, fraud detection, and knowledge graphs.
Amazon Redshift
Amazon Redshift is a data warehousing service that you can use for big data analytics. It offers the ability to collect data from many sources and helps you to understand relationships and trends across your data.
Amazon Relational Database Service
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) is a service that enables you to run relational databases in the AWS Cloud. Amazon RDS is a managed service that automates tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups. With these capabilities, you can spend less time completing administrative tasks and more time using data to innovate your applications. You can integrate Amazon RDS with other services to fulfill your business and operational needs, such as using AWS Lambda to query your database from a serverless application. Amazon RDS provides a number of different security options. Many Amazon RDS database engines offer encryption at rest (protecting data while it is stored) and encryption in transit (protecting data while it is being sent and received).
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a service that provides object-level storage. Amazon S3 stores data as objects in buckets. You can upload any type of file to Amazon S3, such as images, videos, text files, and so on. For example, you might use Amazon S3 to store backup files, media files for a website, or archived documents. Amazon S3 offers unlimited storage space. The maximum file size for an object in Amazon S3 is 5 TB. When you upload a file to Amazon S3, you can set permissions to control visibility and access to it. You can also use the Amazon S3 versioning feature to track changes to your objects over time.
Amazon EBS snapshots
An EBS snapshot is an incremental backup. This means that the first backup taken of a volume copies all the data. For subsequent backups, only the blocks of data that have changed since the most recent snapshot are saved. Incremental backups are different from full backups, in which all the data in a storage volume copies each time a backup occurs. The full backup includes data that has not changed since the most recent backup.
Instance stores
Block-level storage volumes behave like physical hard drives. An instance store provides temporary block-level storage for an Amazon EC2 instance. An instance store is disk storage that is physically attached to the host computer for an EC2 instance, and therefore has the same lifespan as the instance. When the instance is terminated, you lose any data in the instance store.
File storage
In file storage, multiple clients (such as users, applications, servers, and so on) can access data that is stored in shared file folders. In this approach, a storage server uses block storage with a local file system to organize files. Clients access data through file paths. Compared to block storage and object storage, file storage is ideal for use cases in which a large number of services and resources need to access the same data at the same time.
Object storage
In object storage, each object consists of data, metadata, and a key. The data might be an image, video, text document, or any other type of file. Metadata contains information about what the data is, how it is used, the object size, and so on. An object's key is its unique identifier.
Which Amazon S3 storage classes are optimized for archival data? (Select TWO.)
The correct two response options are: S3 Glacier S3 Glacier Deep Archive Objects stored in the S3 Glacier storage class can be retrieved within a few minutes to a few hours. By comparison, objects that are stored in the S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class can be retrieved within 12 hours. The other response options are incorrect because: S3 Standard is a storage class that is ideal for frequently accessed data, not archival data. S3 Intelligent-Tiering monitors access patterns of objects and automatically moves them between the S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA storage classes. It is not designed for archival data. S3 Standard-IA is ideal for data that is infrequently accessed but requires high availability when needed.
What are the scenarios in which you should use Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)? (Select TWO.)
The two correct response options are: - Using SQL to organize data - Storing data in an Amazon Aurora database The other three response options are scenarios in which you should use Amazon DynamoDB.
Which statement best describes Amazon DynamoDB?
The correct response option is A serverless key-value database service. Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value database service. It is serverless, which means that you do not have to provision, patch, or manage servers. The other response options are incorrect because: - A service that enables you to run relational databases in the AWS Cloud describes Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). - A service that you can use to migrate relational databases, nonrelational databases, and other types of data stores describes AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS). - An enterprise-class relational database describes Amazon Aurora.
Which service is used to query and analyze data across a data warehouse?
The correct response option is Amazon Redshift. Amazon Redshift is a data warehousing service that you can use for big data analytics. Use Amazon Redshift to collect data from many sources and help you understand relationships and trends across your data. The other response options are incorrect because: - Amazon Neptune is a graph database service. You can use Amazon Neptune to build and run applications that work with highly connected datasets, such as recommendation engines, fraud detection, and knowledge graphs. - Amazon DocumentDB is a document database service that supports MongoDB workloads. - Amazon ElastiCache is a service that adds caching layers on top of your databases to help improve the read times of common requests.
You want to store data in an object storage service. Which AWS service is best for this type of storage?
The correct response option is Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). The other response options are incorrect because: Amazon Managed Blockchain is a service that you can use to create and manage blockchain networks with open-source frameworks. Blockchain is a distributed ledger system that lets multiple parties run transactions and share data without a central authority. Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) is a scalable file system used with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources. It does not store data as object storage. Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is a service that provides block-level storage volumes that you can use with Amazon EC2 instances.
You want to store data that is infrequently accessed but must be immediately available when needed. Which Amazon S3 storage class should you use?
The correct response option is S3 Standard-IA. The S3 Standard-IA storage class is ideal for data that is infrequently accessed but requires high availability when needed. Both S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA store data in a minimum of three Availability Zones. S3 Standard-IA provides the same level of availability as S3 Standard but at a lower storage price. The other response options are incorrect because: - In the S3 Intelligent-Tiering storage class, Amazon S3 monitors objects' access patterns. If you haven't accessed an object for 30 consecutive days, Amazon S3 automatically moves it to the infrequent access tier, S3 Standard-IA. If you access an object in the infrequent access tier, Amazon S3 automatically moves it to the frequent access tier, S3 Standard. - S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive are low-cost storage classes that are ideal for data archiving. They would not be the best choice for this scenario, which requires high availability. You can retrieve objects stored in the S3 Glacier storage class within a few minutes to a few hours. By comparison, you can retrieve objects stored in the S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class within 12 hours.
Which statement or statements are TRUE about Amazon EBS volumes and Amazon EFS file systems?
The correct response option is: EBS volumes store data within a single Availability Zone. Amazon EFS file systems store data across multiple Availability Zones. An EBS volume must be located in the same Availability Zone as the Amazon EC2 instance to which it is attached. Data in an Amazon EFS file system can be accessed concurrently from all the Availability Zones in the Region where the file system is located.
