EFS Enable Intelligent Tiering

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is a powerful and scalable file storage service, but its Standard storage class can be costly at $0.30 per GB per month. CloudFix can help you optimize these costs by automatically enabling EFS Intelligent-Tiering, which can save up to 92% on storage costs for infrequently accessed files.

Overview

EFS Intelligent-Tiering is a feature that automatically moves infrequently accessed files to a lower-cost storage tier while maintaining immediate access when needed. This CloudFix fixer identifies eligible EFS file systems and enables Intelligent-Tiering to optimize your storage costs without impacting performance.

How It Works

The finder uses your cost and usage data and EFS’s own utilization metrics, read-only, to identify file systems that would benefit from Intelligent-Tiering. Each one appears in your Recommendations for you to approve. Once approved, the fixer runs as an AWS Systems Manager Automation runbook in your own account and applies a two-part lifecycle management policy, and every execution is logged:

• Transition to Infrequent Access (IA): Files that have not been accessed for a period are automatically moved to the IA storage class
• Transition from IA: Files are automatically moved back to the Standard storage class upon first access

AWS Services Affected

Benefits

• Up to 92% cost savings on infrequently accessed files
• Automatic optimization with no manual intervention required
• No impact on file accessibility or performance for frequently accessed data
• Zero downtime during implementation

Prerequisites

The file system must not already have a lifecycle policy for transition to IA, and its current throughput usage must leave room for the change.

Implementation Details

When executed, the fixer performs these actions:

1. For file systems in Bursting throughput mode, switches to Provisioned throughput so performance is maintained as files move to IA
2. Configures Lifecycle Management rules to move files to IA when they go unaccessed, and back to Standard on first access
3. Keeps provisioned throughput in line with demand after the change

Important Considerations

• Files in IA storage class do not accrue burst credits
• IA access incurs a per-GB retrieval fee
• Throughput requirements should be monitored after implementation
• Storage class transitions only occur between corresponding tiers (Standard ↔ Standard-IA, One Zone ↔ One Zone-IA)

Rollback Process

While automatic rollback is not available, you can manually reverse the changes by:

• Disabling IA to prevent new files from moving to IA storage class
• Accessing files to trigger their transition out of IA storage class
• Reverting to Bursting throughput mode if that was the original configuration

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does enabling Intelligent-Tiering require downtime?

No, the implementation can be done without any system downtime.

Q: Can CloudFix implement this automatically?

Yes, once you accept the recommendation, CloudFix can automatically implement the changes.

Q: What happens to my existing files?

Existing files will be evaluated based on their access patterns and moved to IA storage if they haven’t been accessed recently, according to the lifecycle policy.

Related Resources

• AWS EFS Lifecycle Management Documentation
• AWS Blog: Lifecycle Management for EFS Infrequent Access
• AWS EFS Storage Classes Documentation

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