Case Study: Enhancing Storage Efficiency with EBS GP3 Migration for Kubernetes Workloads
Client: A Technology Company with Containerized Workloads
Industry Vertical: Data Transformation & Analytics
Country of Work: India
The Challenge
The client’s infrastructure, heavily relying on Kubernetes for container orchestration, used AWS EBS GP2 volumes for persistent storage. As workload demands for their ETL application and monitoring tools (Grafana and Prometheus) grew, they faced a need for a more cost-effective solution that could deliver consistent performance and IOPS without performance spikes. The goal was a seamless transition with minimal downtime.
The Solution: Strategic EBS GP3 Migration
The solution involved a strategic migration of EBS volumes and Kubernetes Persistent Volumes (PVs) from the standard GP2 to the more cost-efficient and performant GP3 volume type.
The implementation process included:
- Assessment & Planning: Identifying all existing GP2 volumes and planning the migration during low-traffic periods.
- EBS Volume Migration: Using AWS management tools to migrate the volumes to GP3 and performing performance benchmarking post-migration for validation.
- Kubernetes PV Migration: Identifying PVs used by core applications and monitoring tools, reconfiguring the Kubernetes StorageClass to GP3, and ensuring draining and rescheduling of pods for a smooth transition.
Key Technology Stack
| Category | Services/Tools Used |
| Storage | Amazon EBS (GP3, GP2) |
| Compute & Orchestration | AWS EKS, EC2, Kubernetes |
| Monitoring & Management | Grafana, Prometheus, AWS CLI/Console, Kong Ingress Controller |
| DevOps | Jenkins, AWS ECR |
Results & Success Metrics
The migration successfully optimized the client’s storage infrastructure, delivering both performance improvements and significant cost savings.
| Metric | Outcome |
| Cost Reduction | Achieved a 20% reduction in storage costs. |
| Performance | Improved storage performance consistency for core workloads. |
| Efficiency | Simplified capacity management and eliminated the cost of over-provisioning. |
| Transition | Ensured a seamless migration with minimal disruption and downtime. |
Lessons Learned
- EBS GP3 provides a highly cost-effective and performance-consistent alternative to GP2, especially for Kubernetes workloads.
- Careful planning and execution are necessary to ensure seamless migration with minimal disruption.
- Migrating storage for specific applications, like monitoring tools (Grafana/Prometheus), can lead to noticeable performance improvements for those systems.
