Fileshare service for application

Question

I need a filshare, SMB, quorum service for my applications, applications are both windows and linux based.

I tried using AWS FSx Windows cluster but they do not provide auto failover for linux clients, means that linux client will connect to failed subnet unless the failover restored. So, I tried AWS FSx for ONTAP but minimum ssd capacity is 1TB which is going to be costly. I tried creating 2 windows instances with WSFC and quorum, but when I tried to attach EBS to it, it didn't show disks in Failover Clustering, and I dont know how to use iscsi backend with EBS volumes or is it even possible to use it.

But I want alternatives and solutions to FSx or anything will be helpful

Thank You!

Answer 1

FSx for ONTAP is the way to go here if you can afford it, EBS has many limitations around multi-attach:

• It's gotta be io1/2
• Multi-Attach enabled volumes can be attached to up to 16 Linux instances built on the Nitro System that are in the same Availability Zone
• Standard file systems, such as XFS and EXT4, are not designed to be accessed simultaneously by multiple servers, such as EC2 instances. You should use a clustered file system to ensure data resiliency and reliability for your production workloads.
• Multi-Attach enabled io1 doesn't support I/O fencing, io2 does. there are more, but this makes it not ideal for your use case.

IF WSFC is a must, I would have to go with FSx for ONTAP which doesn't have any of these limitations, and check if it can help consolidate more data into the same filesystem (like the actual data in the WSFC) to elevate the cost consideration.