{"id":112,"date":"2023-04-28T09:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T09:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudtechner.com\/blog\/?p=112"},"modified":"2024-06-13T11:07:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T11:07:36","slug":"setting-up-efs-as-persistent-volume-for-aws-eks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudtechner.com\/blog\/setting-up-efs-as-persistent-volume-for-aws-eks\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting up EFS as persistent volume for AWS EKS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Author: Neha Chalia<\/a>, Associate Engineer – CloudDevOps<\/p>\n\n\n

AWS<\/a>, <\/span>Backup<\/a>, <\/span>Cloud<\/a>, <\/span>Storage<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n
\n\n\n
\n
\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Kubernetes, also known as k8s, is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Amazon EKS is a managed Kubernetes service to run Kubernetes in the AWS cloud and on-premises data centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many applications there may be requirement of persistent storage to persist data even if the process is killed\/restarted\/stopped or the machine hosting the application itself is stopped. Now, if any such application is hosted on Kubernetes, it doesn\u2019t provide data persistence out of the box which means when a pod is re-created, the data is lost. In Kubernetes, data persistent can be achieved using a Persistent Volume (PV)<\/strong> which is a piece of storage to store data which can be used by pods running in Kubernetes cluster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we know AWS provides EBS storage service for data persistence and when using AWS EKS , AWS EBS is the default storage for creating Persistent Volume. But biggest challenge with using EBS as Persistent Volume in Kubernetes Cluster is, it can work in ReadWriteOnce <\/strong>access mode only which means it can be mounted in read-write mode when all the pods are running on single node but if pods are running on multiple nodes, they will not be able to access the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In case we have requirement of mounting Persistent Volume on multiple pods running on multiple nodes in read-write mode then in such cases we can\u2019t use AWS EBS as persistent volume in Kubernetes Cluster. For such requirement we can use AWS EFS (Elastic File storage) as Persistent Volume in Kubernetes cluster which works in ReadWriteMany <\/strong>access mode using which can mount Persistent Volume on multiple pods running on multiple nodes in read-write mode<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this blog, I will be explaining how to setup AWS EFS as Persistent Volume in AWS EKS. We will also see the challenge when we use EBS as Persistent Volume in Kubernetes and how that challenge is resolved when we changed to EFS as Persistent Volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I jump into the setup part, lets revisit some basic concepts of PV, EBS and EFS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Persistent Volume (PV) and why its need in Kubernetes:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Persistent volume basically provides a way to store data that can be used by multiple pods running in different nodes in the cluster, and that data should persist even after the pod or node is deleted. Persistent Volume are useful in scenarios where we need to store data that needs to survive beyond the lifetime of the pod or container that created it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The need for a persistent volume in Kubernetes arises from the fact that containerized applications are often stateless, meaning that they don\u2019t retain any data when they are restarted or moved to a different node. However, many applications require persistent data storage, such as databases, file systems, or message queues, that must be accessible to multiple pods or containers in a cluster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EBS (Elastic block storage)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

EBS is a service offered by Amazon that stores information for Amazon EC2 Instances. EBS volumes can be attached to EC2 Instances and also to cluster. It is also used as a primary storage device for backups, data archiving and disaster recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we jump into setting EFS as a persistent volume in k8s.Let\u2019s start with the setup instructions of EBS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EFS (Elastic File storage)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

EFS (Elastic File storage) is a storage service that can be accessed by multiple pods running in different nodes within the cluster. By using EFS, we can enable persistent storage for stateful applications running on EKS Cluster without having to manage the underlying infrastructure. EFS volumes can be used to store application data that needs to be persist across pod restarts or node failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set up instructions:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Setup EBS as Persistent Volume in AWS EKS<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

First lets see how EBS works in Kubernetes Cluster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pre-requisites:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n