Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - File storage for builders and data scientists on Amazon EFS (STG216)

Summary

Delwin Olivan, Ananth Bajanathan, and Daryl Osborne presented on Amazon EFS and its benefits for builders and data scientists.
Amazon EFS is designed for a broad spectrum of file workloads and customer personas, from IT administrators to data scientists.
Three themes for file storage needs in the cloud: deploying/migrating NAS solutions, running scale-out workloads, and developing cloud-native applications.
Amazon FSx family offers various file systems for NAS and scale-out workloads, while EFS is tailored for cloud-native applications.
EFS is serverless, fully elastic, and accessible from any cloud resource, aiming to be configuration-free, cost-optimized, and performance-efficient.
EFS's new features include Elastic Throughput, which eliminates performance provisioning, and Intelligent Tiering for cost optimization.
Real-world examples of EFS usage include machine learning at scale with Kubeflow, Asurion's ML inference application, and Johnson & Johnson's genomics R&D.
A demo showcased the benefits of Elastic Throughput for applications with spiky, unpredictable workloads.
Attendees were encouraged to continue their AWS storage learning journey and attend other EFS sessions at re:Invent.

Amazon EFS is positioned as a solution for the increasing complexity and scale of cloud-native applications, particularly for data-intensive workloads like machine learning and analytics.
The introduction of Elastic Throughput and Intelligent Tiering indicates AWS's focus on simplifying cloud storage management and cost optimization, which are critical pain points for builders and data scientists.
The use cases presented demonstrate EFS's versatility across different industries and applications, highlighting its ability to support both stateful and stateless architectures.
The improvements in latency and the launch of Elastic Throughput suggest AWS's commitment to continuous performance enhancement, which is essential for real-time and high-performance computing scenarios.
The session's emphasis on serverless architecture reflects a broader industry trend towards fully managed services that abstract away infrastructure management, allowing developers to focus on building and deploying applications.
The customer examples provided, such as Asurion and Johnson & Johnson, offer insights into how enterprises are leveraging AWS services to solve complex business problems and achieve operational efficiency.
The demo of Elastic Throughput effectively illustrated the benefits of the new feature, potentially influencing attendees to consider or migrate to EFS for their storage needs.