Amazon EBS at re:Invent 2022: Balancing costs and getting the most out of your block storage

When I talk with customers, one of the most popular questions that I get asked is “What are the easiest ways I can get more out of what I’m provisioning on AWS?” In my role, I’m focused on Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), the storage powering Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and many managed services. I am happy to share that two key EBS themes at re:Invent 2022 are cost optimization and performance management.

Storing data in a way that meets application and business objectives is critically important for using resources without waste. Customers look to optimize their EBS volumes because storage is frequently in the top five items of their AWS bill. With the launch of EBS products and features over the last two years, some users might be unaware of the recent advantages available to them to balance cost and performance goals. Combine that with evolving how to observe and manage your EBS storage, this is an opportunity to review and refresh best practices for your application management at scale using AWS.

If you’re new to the subject and want a balanced perspective, I recommend starting out with (Breakout) STG204: Optimize price and performance with Amazon EBS which has very good fundamentals on what’s available today and current best practices. Topics include choosing the right volume type and understanding management tools that provide actionable recommendations. My go-to monitoring and management tools highlighted in this session include Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Compute Optimizer, and AWS Trusted Advisor.

If you want to dive further or you’re already used to managing your workloads using a variety of existing tools, I recommend the more advanced session (Chalk Talk) STG306: Best practices for Amazon EBS volumes & performance monitoring using CloudWatch where we take a look at finer-grain measurement and triggers. Using CloudWatch effectively contributes to controlling and management of application data stores at scale.

Power users will definitely appreciate the deep dive session (Chalk Talk) STG405: Best practices for operating at scale with Amazon EBS and EBS Snapshots – a popular topic that builds on the aforementioned fundamentals. If you’re already aware of the service and its features but want to optimize these resources at scale, this is the session for you. Topics will include making modifications of volumes and policies at scale, discussing migration strategies, using tagging effectively for cost accounting, and rapid data hydration of volumes at scale. An example that I’m looking forward to is how to migrate 100,000 or more volumes to another type without application downtime.

With re:Invent 2022 around the corner, I’m looking forward to hearing the stories about how our users adopt these tools at scale and how we can continue to drive EBS into new and interesting applications by a diverse global user base.

If you would like to discuss your storage strategies with me while you are at re:Invent, send me a note at ebs-reinvent-2022-meetings@amazon.com and I will be glad to meet.

Roll up your sleeves to learn by doing

If you want to gain hands-on experience on building a resilient architecture, come join the (Workshop) STG314: Amazon EBS Snapshots: Build protection and cost-optimize and (Builders) STG406: Automated data protection & backup compliance with Amazon EBS Snapshots sessions. You will learn other interesting topics, including how to protect data at-rest, data in-transit, and all volume backups with EBS encryption, how to enable a single opt-in setting to easily achieve compliance goals by encrypting all new volumes as they are created, and how to secure your data with ease and with no downtime. Encryption is supported by all volume types and it includes built-in key management to secure your mission-critical workloads.

Find Amazon EBS in other sessions

Amazon EBS is an easy-to-use, scalable, high-performance block-storage service designed for Amazon EC2. If you are looking to deploy low-latency workloads that also require high-performance storage capacity, such as MySQL, MongoDB, Hadoop, ElasticSearch, or Apache Kafka, join this EC2 session: (Breakout) CMP312: Run high-performance storage workloads on EC2 storage optimized instances to learn about the best instance/storage combinations for your workloads. This session dives deep on the different Amazon EC2 storage optimized instance offerings, including a discussion of SSD performance, AWS Nitro SSD advantages, price performance, and ways to optimize your clusters using Amazon EC2 storage optimized instances with Intel and AWS Graviton. Learn when to pick Amazon EC2 storage optimized instance offerings and/or Amazon EBS to run your high-performance storage workloads, based on your workload requirements.

Beyond sessions, let’s have some fun

RSVP for the AWS Storage Happy Hour Event. Join AWS experts on Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, AWS file storage, and the AWS data protection portfolio for an evening of conversations, signature AWS Storage cocktails, small bites, and cool SWAGs. Learn how AWS Storage can help you innovate faster and protect your application data. In addition, up-level your career with discussions on AWS Storage Learning badges.

Show us your earned AWS Storage Learning badge or your completed Passport Program, and pick up a Block, Bucket, or File hat or a Data Protection t-shirt.

Can’t make it to Las Vegas? Join us virtually for free

If you can’t make it to Las Vegas this year, you can register to virtually attend our live keynotes and leadership sessions for free. You’ll also have the opportunity to view breakout sessions on demand. And AWS Training and Certification is offering digital training, exam readiness, and many more resources virtually. Virtual registration is included for all in-person attendees. Register now.

Don’t forget to regularly check back to our YouTube channel for recaps of all re:Invent sessions after the event, and be sure to follow our AWS Storage Twitter account for the latest and greatest in cloud storage.

Questions ? Talk to an EBS expert

Performance and cost optimization are at the top of mind for organizations choosing a block storage architecture in the cloud. If you have any questions about Amazon EBS and its broad capabilities critical to enterprise workloads, please contact us here. We would love to hear from you and answer any questions you may have about Amazon EBS.