AWS Certified Solutions Architect – ProfessionalAccelerate Workload Migration and ModernizationHard
A large enterprise is migrating a legacy mainframe application that processes daily batch files containing sensitive customer data. The mainframe generates these files and stores them on Network File System (NFS) shares. The enterprise needs to move these files to AWS for processing by cloud-native applications, ensuring secure, low-latency access from AWS to the NFS shares during a transition period, and eventually migrating the data to Amazon S3. Which AWS service should be used to facilitate this hybrid file storage access?
- AAmazon EFS File Sync
- BAWS Transfer Family
- CAWS DataSync
- DAWS Storage Gateway (File Gateway)
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. AWS Storage Gateway (File Gateway)
AWS Storage Gateway's File Gateway presents NFS (or SMB) shares as S3 objects, allowing cloud-native applications to access on-premises files as if they were in S3, while transparently caching data on-premises for low-latency access and managing the transfer to S3. This facilitates a hybrid file storage model during migration.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Amazon EFS File Sync is not a standalone AWS service; it's a feature within AWS DataSync or a component that facilitates data transfer to EFS, not a gateway for S3 from on-premises NFS.
- B. AWS Transfer Family (SFTP, FTPS, FTP) is for transferring files over standard protocols, primarily for moving data to and from S3, but it does not provide a file interface to existing on-premises NFS shares for cloud applications.
- C. AWS DataSync is a data transfer service that makes it easier to automate moving data between on-premises storage and AWS storage services (like S3, EFS, FSx). While it can transfer data from NFS to S3, it's primarily for bulk, one-time or scheduled transfers, not for providing continuous, low-latency, hybrid file access from cloud applications to on-premises NFS shares during a transition.
AWS Storage Gateway (File Gateway)
A hybrid storage service that provides on-premises applications with file-based access to cloud storage (Amazon S3) using standard file protocols like NFS and SMB.
- Presents S3 as NFS/SMB shares to on-premises apps.
- Caches frequently accessed data locally for low latency.
- Manages data transfer to S3, including versioning and lifecycle policies.
- Ideal for hybrid cloud file storage and migration to S3.
Memory trick: File Gateway Gets Files to S3