EBS Volumes & Elastic IPs

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store)

EBS provides persistent block storage volumes for EC2 instances. Data persists independently of the instance lifecycle.

EBS Volume Types

Type	Name	IOPS	Throughput	Use Case
gp3	General Purpose SSD	3,000-16,000	125-1,000 MB/s	Most workloads
gp2	General Purpose SSD	Up to 16,000	Up to 250 MB/s	Legacy default
io2	Provisioned IOPS SSD	Up to 64,000	Up to 1,000 MB/s	Databases
st1	Throughput HDD	500	500 MB/s	Big data, logs
sc1	Cold HDD	250	250 MB/s	Infrequent access

Creating and Attaching Volumes

# Create a volume
aws ec2 create-volume \
  --volume-type gp3 \
  --size 50 \
  --availability-zone us-east-1a \
  --tag-specifications 'ResourceType=volume,Tags=[{Key=Name,Value=nextgen-data}]'
 
# Attach to an instance
aws ec2 attach-volume \
  --volume-id vol-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --instance-id i-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --device /dev/xvdf

Formatting and Mounting (on the instance)

# Check the device
lsblk
 
# Create filesystem
sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/xvdf
 
# Create mount point
sudo mkdir /data
 
# Mount the volume
sudo mount /dev/xvdf /data
 
# Persist across reboots (add to fstab)
echo '/dev/xvdf /data ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
 
# Verify
df -h /data

EBS Snapshots

Snapshots are point-in-time backups of EBS volumes stored in S3.

# Create a snapshot
aws ec2 create-snapshot \
  --volume-id vol-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --description "NextGen data backup $(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
 
# List snapshots
aws ec2 describe-snapshots \
  --owner-ids self \
  --query 'Snapshots[*].[SnapshotId,VolumeId,StartTime,State]' \
  --output table
 
# Create volume from snapshot (restore)
aws ec2 create-volume \
  --snapshot-id snap-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --volume-type gp3 \
  --availability-zone us-east-1a
 
# Delete old snapshots
aws ec2 delete-snapshot --snapshot-id snap-0123456789abcdef0

Automated Snapshots

Use AWS Data Lifecycle Manager for scheduled snapshots:

aws dlm create-lifecycle-policy \
  --description "Daily snapshots, retain 7 days" \
  --state ENABLED \
  --execution-role-arn arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/AWSDataLifecycleManagerDefaultRole \
  --policy-details '{
    "PolicyType": "EBS_SNAPSHOT_MANAGEMENT",
    "ResourceTypes": ["VOLUME"],
    "TargetTags": [{"Key": "Backup", "Value": "true"}],
    "Schedules": [{
      "Name": "DailyBackup",
      "CreateRule": {"Interval": 24, "IntervalUnit": "HOURS"},
      "RetainRule": {"Count": 7}
    }]
  }'

Elastic IPs

Elastic IPs are static public IPv4 addresses that you can associate with EC2 instances.

Why Elastic IPs?

Without EIP	With EIP
IP changes on stop/start	IP stays the same
DNS records break	DNS always resolves
Can't pre-configure firewalls	Stable firewall rules

Managing Elastic IPs

# Allocate an Elastic IP
aws ec2 allocate-address --domain vpc
 
# Associate with an instance
aws ec2 associate-address \
  --instance-id i-0123456789abcdef0 \
  --allocation-id eipalloc-0123456789abcdef0
 
# Disassociate
aws ec2 disassociate-address \
  --association-id eipassoc-0123456789abcdef0
 
# Release (free the IP)
aws ec2 release-address \
  --allocation-id eipalloc-0123456789abcdef0

Important Notes

You're charged for Elastic IPs that are not associated with a running instance
Limit of 5 EIPs per region (can request increase)
Use DNS (Route 53) instead of EIPs when possible for better flexibility

EBS Best Practices

Practice	Reason
Use gp3 over gp2	Better price/performance
Enable encryption	Data security at rest
Regular snapshots	Disaster recovery
Right-size volumes	Cost optimization
Monitor with CloudWatch	Performance visibility

# Enable encryption by default for new volumes
aws ec2 enable-ebs-encryption-by-default
 
# Create encrypted volume
aws ec2 create-volume \
  --volume-type gp3 \
  --size 100 \
  --encrypted \
  --availability-zone us-east-1a

Summary

You've learned:

EBS volume types and their performance characteristics
Creating, attaching, and mounting EBS volumes
Snapshot management for backups and recovery
Elastic IP allocation and association
Best practices for storage and networking

Next Steps

Next, we'll monitor EC2 instances and set up alarms with Amazon CloudWatch.

Learning Objectives