Question on Amazon FSx For Lustre

[nopainnogain]

While practicing in one of the Exam Simulator Tests available on AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate course, I got this one:

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“An AI-powered Forex trading application consumes thousands of data sets to train its machine learning model. The application’s workload requires a high-performance, parallel hot storage to process the training datasets concurrently. It also needs cost-effective cold storage to archive those datasets that yield low profit.

Which of the following Amazon storage services should the developer use?”
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According to the course, the right answer is “Use Amazon FSx For Lustre and Amazon S3 for hot and cold storage respectively”.

Indeed most of the question leads towards that anwer, I understood the Amazon FSx For Lustre is only compatible with POSIX (i.e. Linux-based) OS, and since the question does not mention the OS of the Forex trading application, I thought if it was running based on MS-Windows machines (although very unlikely), it would not work.

Amazon FSx

Probably I got something wrong in my judgment, nonetheless could anyone please further clarify that specific point for me?

Thank you!

[Gerome-TutorialsDojo]

Hello nopainnogain,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

To understand it better, let’s break down the question into two parts.

1. The application’s workload requires a high-performance, parallel hot storage to process the training datasets concurrently

In the first requirement, you need to use a service for parallel hot storage.

– The keyword here is “parallel.” Based on this AWS FAQS, Amazon FSx for Lustre provides a parallel file system. Since the scenario also stated that the application consumes thousands of data sets to train its machine learning model. We can take a look at this part of the Amazon FSx for Lustre FAQs.

Q: What use cases does Amazon FSx for Lustre support?

A: Use Amazon FSx for Lustre for workloads where speed matters, such as machine learning, high-performance computing (HPC), video processing, financial modeling, genome sequencing, and electronic design automation (EDA).

Amazon FSx For Windows File Server is incorrect because it does not have a parallel file system, unlike Lustre.

https://aws.amazon.com/fsx/lustre/faqs/

2. It also needs cost-effective cold storage to archive those datasets that yield low profit.

– On the second requirement, we can use Amazon S3 for storing the cold data. Amazon S3 supports a cold storage system via Amazon S3 Glacier / Glacier Deep Archive.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/cost-optimization-storage-optimization/aws-storage-services.html

Let us know if you need further assistance. The Tutorials Dojo team is dedicated to helping you pass your AWS exam on your first try!

Regards,

Gerome @ Tutorials Dojo

[nopainnogain]

Hi Gerome.

First of all, thank you for reppling it.

I got (and agree with) your points, but my questioning is: Is Amazon FSx For Lustre only compatible with POSIX (i.e. Linux-based) O.S.; or it’s also compatible with Windows-based as well?

[Gerome-TutorialsDojo]

Hello nopainnogain,

Thanks for the reply.

To understand it better, Lustre is a portmanteau of Linux and cluster.

Your question is “Amazon FSx For Lustre only compatible with POSIX (i.e. Linux-based) O.S.; or it’s also compatible with Windows-based as well?”

– If you need file storage for Windows, you must use Amazon FSx for Windows File Server.

https://aws.amazon.com/fsx/

Let us know if you need further assistance. The Tutorials Dojo team is dedicated to help you pass your AWS exam on your first try!

Regards,

Gerome @ Tutorials Dojo

[nopainnogain]

Understood Gerome. Thank you for your reply.