What type of service is Amazon EFS?

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) is classified as a fully managed file storage service that can be accessed from multiple Amazon EC2 instances. This capability allows for concurrent access to shared data, making EFS particularly useful for applications that require a centralized file system that multiple instances can read from and write to simultaneously.

EFS is designed to scale automatically as files are added or deleted, ensuring that you can seamlessly manage varying workloads without manual intervention. It supports the NFS (Network File System) protocol, which provides file system semantics, enabling applications to leverage a familiar file structure for storing and retrieving data.

Because of its managed nature, users do not have to worry about complex storage management tasks such as hardware provisioning, patching, or scaling, which simplifies the operational overhead. This makes EFS an ideal choice for use cases like content management systems, big data applications, and other scenarios where shared file storage is necessary.