Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) vs. AWS CloudFormation

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
The Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provides a simple, scalable, elastic file system for Linux-based workloads for use with AWS Cloud services and on-premises resources.
$0.04
per GB
AWS CloudFormation
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
AWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators a way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in a predictable fashion. Use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run an application. Users don’t need to figure out the order for provisioning AWS services or the subtleties of making those dependencies work.…
$0
Pricing
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)AWS CloudFormation
Editions & Modules
US East & West Region
$0.043
per month per GB (One zone)
Europe (Ireland) Region
$0.046
per month per GB (One zone)
Asia Pacific & Canada Region
$0.047
per month per GB (One zone)
Africa (Cape Town) Region
$0.054
per month per GB (One zone)
AWS GovCloud (US-East)
$0.056
per month per GB (One zone)
US East & West Region
$0.08
per month per GB (Standard)
Asia Pacific & Canada Region
$0.09
per month per GB (Standard)
Europe (Ireland) Region
$0.09
per month per GB (Standard)
Africa (Cape Town) Region
$0.10
per month per GB (Standard)
AWS GovCloud (US-East)
$0.11
per month per GB (Standard)
Free Tier - 1,000 Handler Operations per Month per Account
$0.00
Handler Operation
$0.0009
per handler operation
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)AWS CloudFormation
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThere is no minimum fee or setup charge. You pay only for the storage you use, for read and write access to data stored in Infrequent Access storage classes, and for any provisioned throughput. Amazon EFS offers four storage classes: two standard storage classes, including Amazon EFS Standard and Amazon EFS Standard-Infrequent Access (EFS Standard-IA), and two One Zone storage classes, including Amazon EFS One Zone and Amazon EFS One Zone-Infrequent AccessThere is no additional charge for using AWS CloudFormation with resource providers in the following namespaces: AWS::*, Alexa::*, and Custom::*. In this case you pay for AWS resources (such as Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancing load balancers, etc.) created using AWS CloudFormation as if you created them manually. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no required upfront commitments. When you use resource providers with AWS CloudFormation outside the namespaces mentioned above, you incur charges per handler operation. Handler operations are create, update, delete, read, or list actions on a resource.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)AWS CloudFormation
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)AWS CloudFormation
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)
8.8
5 Ratings
8% above category average
AWS CloudFormation
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates4.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images7.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support9.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)AWS CloudFormation
Small Businesses
Linode
Linode
Score 9.0 out of 10
HashiCorp Terraform
HashiCorp Terraform
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Ansible
Ansible
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP on IBM Cloud
SAP on IBM Cloud
Score 9.1 out of 10
Ansible
Ansible
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)AWS CloudFormation
Likelihood to Recommend
7.5
(5 ratings)
7.6
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)AWS CloudFormation
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
While the idea is to utilize it enterprise wide; it sometimes doesn't work well in smaller applications and that causes slowdowns and impacts productivity. Also when evaluating EFS versus EBS - one needs to look at cost as EFS is a lot more expensive to implement and run so you need to weigh cost benefits of both systems and choose the best for you.
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Amazon AWS
AWS CloudFormation is well suited for scenarios where all of your resources need to be provisioned on AWS but it is not suited for hybrid cloud deployments. It's very easy for someone new to learn. The level of customization offered as part of the template specifically for AWS services is great. There is also a UI tool where we can drag and drop the services we want and it generates an yaml file which is very easy to use. The visibility of stacks and its resources and one place where we can track and identify the issues in deployment is great.
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Pros
Amazon AWS
  • This is very easy to setup and has a great performance.
  • As per the name, Elastic grows as your data grows.
  • We can run multiple EC2 instances.
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Amazon AWS
  • SaaS
  • Paas
  • Iaas
  • On promises
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Cons
Amazon AWS
  • For early age start it would be costly
  • Not necessary for small scale system, but very beneficial for system which have high TPS and huge user base
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Amazon AWS
  • Error Description upon Failure Needs to be Improved.
  • Slow to create, delete or update.
  • Need to delete resources manually. It can ask before starting deletion whether to skip those resources or delete them.
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
The documentation is sufficient for setting up and it is basic NFS for mounting so not much support is required. I have not had any issues to warrant a request with AWS support.
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Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
EFS is easier to configure, no need for Active Directory.
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Amazon AWS
We didn't look into anything else as Cloudformation was "built-in" for AWS, it just kind of made sense to go with that. Terraform was something that we briefly looked into Terraform but decides to stick with Cloudformation because our task was relatively "simple". Apparently if it's a bit more complex, Terraform might be the way to go.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Cost is always a paramount issue when looking at ROI
  • It is fast and if that's what you need for your implementation - you probably will not find a better solution
  • Expertise in EFS is sometimes hard to come by so it's best to look at your employee's ability to grasp this technology. Otherwise, it's a pretty steep learning curve.
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Amazon AWS
  • It has a positive ROI
  • Less time inverted in bugs
  • More stable source code
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ScreenShots

AWS CloudFormation Screenshots

Screenshot of CloudFormation - How it works overviewScreenshot of CloudFormation - High level how it worksScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template exampleScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template inputs overview