Build a multi-region FSx for Lustre file system for disaster recovery
Multi-region resiliency refers to the ability to handle failure and maintain service availability even when an entire region or data center goes down. This can be achieved by replicating data, services, and infrastructure across multiple regions.
JS Labonte
Amazon Employee
Published Nov 13, 2024
Many organizations struggle with maintaining cost-effective and flexible storage solutions during disaster recovery. This post explores an innovative approach to managing FSx Lustre volumes across regions while optimizing performance and cost.
- Maintain a synchronized FSx Lustre volume in a standby region with minimal performance characteristics
- Enable performance scaling during DR events
- Reduce performance and costs after DR resolution
Amazon FSx for Lustre currently prevents decreasing performance characteristics once increased. The only method to reduce performance is through backup and restore, which is inefficient for DR strategies.
- Implement a Data Repository Association (DRA) linked to an Amazon S3 bucket in the primary region
- Maintain a minimal FSx Lustre configuration in the DR region
- Use Amazon S3 lifecycle policies to manage object versions
When DR is triggered:
- Start the FSx Lustre volume in the DR region
- Configure the filesystem with higher performance characteristics
After DR resolution:
- Destroy the high-performance FSx Lustre volume.
- Recreate a minimal setup for future use.
This approach eliminates the need for constant "warm" volumes in the DR region, potentially reducing costs. S3 Live replication ensures near-real-time synchronization of data between regions, with only a slight delay (seconds to minutes).
- Eliminates constant "warm" volumes in the DR region
- Reduces potential costs
- Ensures near-real-time data synchronization
- Provides performance scaling flexibility
- Faster fail over compared to traditional backup/restore methods
This approach offers a cost-effective and responsive DR strategy for Amazon FSx for Lustre, addressing synchronization and performance challenges while maintaining operational flexibility. Organizations should evaluate their specific workload requirements and test this approach to ensure alignment with their DR objectives.
Interested in optimizing your disaster recovery strategy? Explore how flexible FSx Lustre configurations can transform your data resilience approach and get started now with Amazon FSx for Lustre.
Any opinions in this post are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.