Introduction to Amazon FSx for Windows File Server

© 2020, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

Dean Suzuki, Senior Solution Architect, AWS

4/8/2020

Introduction to

Amazon FSx for Windows File

Server


What is Amazon FSx for Windows File Server?

Deeply integrated

with AWS

Fully managed native

Windows file systems


Fully managed means you no longer need to…

Manage hardware

Procure and purchase hardware

Set up storage servers and volumes

Detect and address hardware failures

Invest CapEx

Manage software


Native Windows compatibility and features

Native Windows

compatibility

DFS

Namespaces

Integrates with

Microsoft AD

and supports

Windows ACLs

AD

NTFS

Windows Server

Native SMB

2.0 to 3.1.1

SMB


Fast and flexible performance

Fast and

flexible

performance

High

IOPS

High

throughput

Built on SSD

storage

Consistent

sub-millisecond latencies

Choose throughput

independent of

storage


Fast and flexible performanceChoose throughput level independent of storage

Even higher performance with caching: 600 MBps - 3 GBps

Sustained (MBps) 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1,024 2,048

Burst (MBps) 192 192 192 256 438 438 - - -


Enterprise-ready: Highly available and highly

durable

Highly available

and durable

Supports Multi AZ

deployments

Backups are

stored in

Amazon S3

Replicates

data within

Availability

Zone

Continually

monitors and

addresses

hardware failures


Enterprise ready: Secure and compliant

Secure and

Compliant

Network traffic access

control using Amazon

VPC security groups

Integrates with

AD and

supports

Windows ACLs

Data encrypted

at-rest and

in-transit

PCI-DSS + ISO-

compliant

and HIPAA eligible

Monitor and

log

API calls using

AWS CloudTrail

Admin API

access control

using AWS IAM


Broadly accessible

Linux

(SMB client)

Microsoft Windows

Server 2008+ and

Windows 7+

VPN AWS Direct

Connect

Amazon

AppStream 2.0

Amazon

WorkSpaces

VMware Cloud

on AWS

Amazon EC2

OS Compute instance Network connectivity

MacOS

VPC Peering AWS Transit

Gateway

On-premises

compute instanceIn-VPC access


Supports a wide spectrum of use cases

AnalyticsSoftware development

environments

Home

directories

Web serving and

content management

Media

workflows

Line-of-business

applications


Architecture

Region

Subnet 1

Instances

Availability zone A

VPC

Elastic network

interface

\\fs-0123456789.example.com\share


Performance: Throughput with caching

Region

Subnet 1

Instances

Availability zone A

VPC

Elastic network

interface


Memory Storage


Performance

Region

Subnet 1

Instances

Availability zone A

VPC


Even higher performance with caching: 600 MBps - 3 GBps per file system

Sustained (MBps) 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1,024 2,048

Burst (MBps) 192 192 192 256 438 438 - - -

Up to hundreds of thousands of IOPS per file system


Performance: SMB multi-channel

Region

Subnet 1

Instances

Availability zone A

VPC

Elastic network

interface


CPU

CPU

CPU


Single-AZ file system architecture

AWS CloudAvailability Zone 1

On-premises networkAvailability Zone 2 AWS

Direct

Connect

or VPN

Windows file server


Multi-AZ file system architecture

Availability Zone 1 Availability Zone 2AWS Cloud On-premises networkAWS

Direct

Connect

or VPN

Windows file server

Windows file server


Organizing large amounts of data

• FSx supports the use of Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) Namespaces

• Use DFSn for file system consolidation under a single namespace

Users can access different Amazon FSx file systems and file shares using a common name, comprised of the domain name, namespace, and target folder name.

\\domain.name\namespace

\share_1

\share_2

\share_3


Organizing large amounts of data

Region

Instances

Availability zone A


VPC

Subnet 2

Availability zone B

\\fs-9876543210.example.com\data

Availability zone X

Subnet N

Namespace Server 2

\\example.com\corp

\share

\sales

\data

Subnet 1

Namespace Server 1

\\fs-0123456789.example.com\sales

Up to 50,000 shares and

3 EiB per namespace


Scale-out performance using data sharding

Region

Instances

Availability zone A

\\fs-0123456789.example.com\A-F

VPC

Subnet 2

Availability zone B

\\fs-9876543210.example.com\N-Z

Availability zone X

Subnet N

Namespace Server 2

\\example.com\corp

\A-F

\G-M

\N-Z

Subnet 1

Namespace Server 1

3x read/write

performance

\\fs-5678901234.example.com\G-M


Use Amazon FSx with your organization’s AD

Directly integrate your Amazon FSx file systems with your organization’s Active Directory (on-premises or in-cloud)

• Authentication: Your users continue to access file shares by authenticating with their existing AD user credentials

• Authorization: You can migrate and use your existing file and folder ACLs, and your share-level access controls as is, without any modifications needed

Supports two AD integration options:

• AWS Managed Microsoft AD

• Self-managed Microsoft AD (on-premises or in-cloud)


Availability Zone 2

Support for SQL Server HA deployments

• Supports SMB Transparent Failover (aka Continuously Available shares)

• Use Amazon FSx to store databases and logs for SQL Server Always On Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) deployments

• No need to deploy, manage, and pay license fees for storage replication software solutions

Availability Zone 1

AWS Region

SQL

Server FCI

Primary

SQL Server

FCI Secondary

Automatic Failover

\\fs-0123456789.example.com


Data Deduplication

Large datasets often have a lot of duplication, which increases storage costs

User shares (home directories)

Multiple users have many copies or versions of a file

Software dev shares

Most portions of binaries remain unchanged from build to build

Use Data Deduplication to reduce costs associated with duplicated data

Scenario Content Typical space savings

User documents Office documents, photos, music, and videos 30-50%

Software dev shares Software binaries, build files, and program symbols 70-80%

General file shares Mix of the above 50-60%


User Storage Quotas

• Monitor and control user-level storage space consumption on file systems

• Use remote management PowerShell CLI on your file system to…

• Enable/disable user quotas

• Configure quota levels for the default and for specific users or groups

• Choose between track and enforce modes

• List current quota violations


Backups

Region

Daily automated backup

User-defined retention period: 0 to 35 days

User-defined daily schedule

User-initiated backup

User-managed retention

Backup as often as you want

Amazon S3

Amazon FSx

for Windows File Server

\\fs-0123456789.example.com


File-level restore by end-users (Shadow copies)

Compare previous file versions

Self-serviceNo more filing a ticket to admin

Undo changes to individual filesNo need to restore the entire file system


Migration of existing files

Region

VPC

Availability zone A

Subnet 1

On-Premise

File server

\\source\share

Robocopy

Or

AWS DataSync

Instances

VPN

Connection

Or \\fs-0123456789.example.com\share


Learn more at: aws.amazon.com/fsx/windows

Video

Feature blogs

Whitepapers

Ref architectures

Documentation

© 2019, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. 2020, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

References

For more information, see FSx documentation

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fsx/latest/WindowsGuide/what-is.html

https://aws.amazon.com/fsx/windows/features/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fsx/latest/WindowsGuide/what-is.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fsx/latest/WindowsGuide/shadow-copies-fsxW.html

Introduction to Amazon FSx for Windows File Server

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