To meet the requirements of migrating its on-premises Windows and Linux applications to AWS and creating a pilot light DR environment in another AWS Region, the company should use Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP for the application storage. Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP is a fully managed service that provides highly reliable, scalable, high-performing, and feature-rich file storage built on NetApp’s popular ONTAP file system. FSx for ONTAP supports multiple protocols, including SMB for Windows and NFS for Linux, so the company can access the shared storage from both types of applications. FSx for ONTAP also supports NetApp SnapMirror replication, which enables the company to replicate the storage to the DR Region. NetApp SnapMirror replication is efficient, secure, and incremental, and it preserves the data deduplication and compression benefits of FSx for ONTAP. The company can use automation to launch and configure the EC2 instances in the DR Region and then use NetApp SnapMirror to restore the data from the primary Region.
The other options are not correct because they do not meet the requirements or follow best practices. Using Amazon S3 for the application storage is not a good option because S3 is an object storage service that does not support SMB or NFS protocols natively. The company would need to use additional services or software to mount S3 buckets as file systems, which would add complexity and cost. Using Amazon EBS for the application storage is also not a good option because EBS is a block storage service that does not support SMB or NFS protocols natively. The company would need to set up and manage file servers on EC2 instances to provide shared access to the EBS volumes, which would add overhead and maintenance. Using a Volume Gateway in AWS Storage Gateway for the application storage is not a valid option because Volume Gateway does not support SMB protocol. Volume Gateway only supports iSCSI protocol, which means that only Linux applications can access the shared storage.
1: What is Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP? - FSx for ONTAP
2: Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
3: Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP | NetApp
4: AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
Replicating Data with NetApp SnapMirror - FSx for ONTAP
What Is Amazon S3? - Amazon Simple Storage Service
What Is Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)? - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
What Is AWS Storage Gateway? - AWS Storage Gateway
