AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – AssociateCost and Performance OptimizationHard
A company is using Amazon EBS gp2 volumes for their Amazon EC2 instances. They observe that a specific application server is experiencing I/O bottlenecks, with consistent high latency and low throughput, even though the provisioned IOPS for the gp2 volume should theoretically be sufficient for the average workload. Upon further investigation, it's found that the application performs frequent, small, random I/O operations. The current gp2 volume size is 200 GB. Which action should the SysOps Administrator take to improve I/O performance most effectively and cost-efficiently?
- AAttach an additional gp2 volume and use RAID 0 for striping.
- BModify the application to use larger, sequential I/O operations.
- CIncrease the gp2 volume size to 1 TB to gain more baseline IOPS.
- DMigrate the EBS volume to an io1/io2 volume type with provisioned IOPS.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: D. Migrate the EBS volume to an io1/io2 volume type with provisioned IOPS.
For workloads requiring consistent, high-performance, and low-latency I/O, especially with small, random operations, Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1/io2) volumes are the most suitable choice. They allow you to explicitly provision a specific number of IOPS, ensuring consistent performance regardless of volume size, which gp2 cannot guarantee for all unpredictable I/O patterns.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Using RAID 0 can improve performance by striping data across multiple volumes, but it adds complexity and management overhead. It might also not be as cost-effective or performant as a single, properly configured io1/io2 volume for specific I/O patterns.
- B. Modifying the application to change its I/O pattern is a development task, not a direct SysOps action for immediate performance improvement, and might not always be feasible or desirable.
- C. While increasing gp2 volume size does increase baseline IOPS (3 IOPS/GB), it's not the most direct or cost-effective solution for consistent high-performance, low-latency I/O for small, random operations. A 1TB gp2 volume would provide 3000 baseline IOPS, which might still not be enough or be more expensive than provisioned IOPS for specific needs.
EBS Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1/io2)
EBS volume types designed for I/O-intensive workloads that require consistent high performance and low latency, allowing explicit provisioning of IOPS.
- Offers consistent high IOPS and throughput.
- Suitable for critical transactional workloads.
- IOPS are provisioned independently of volume size (within limits).
Memory trick: EBS speed: general purpose, provisioned power, or cold storage.