F39 proposal: EC2 AMIs default to the gp3 EBS volume type (Self-Contained Change proposal)

[Ben Cotton]

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/CloudEC2gp3

This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes
process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive
community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved
by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

== Summary ==
In Amazon EC2, Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes can be one of several
types. These can be specified at volume creation time, including for
the default volumes that are created on instance launch. An AMI will
have default volumes and volume types configured. Fedora currently
defaults to the gp2 volume type. This proposal is to switch to gp3 as
the default volume type for Fedora. The gp3 volume type is both more
flexible than gp2, and can be up to 20% cheaper per GB.

== Owner ==
* Name: [[User:Trawets| Stewart Smith]] [[User:Davdunc| David Duncan]]
* Email: trawets(a)amazon.com


== Detailed Description ==
According to https://aws.amazon.com/ebs/general-purpose/ :

: Amazon EBS gp3 volumes are the latest generation of general-purpose
SSD-based EBS volumes that enable customers to provision performance
independent of storage capacity, while providing up to 20% lower price
per GB than existing gp2 volumes. With gp3 volumes, customers can
scale IOPS (input/output operations per second) and throughput without
needing to provision additional block storage capacity. This means
customers only pay for the storage they need.

For the default configuration of Fedora 37 AMIs, this means the price
per-GB-per-month for the default root volume would be $0.08 rather
than $0.10. The default number of provisioned IOPs would increase from
100 with gp2, to 3000 with gp3. For gp2 volumes less than 1TB, they
can burst up to 3000 IOPs (see
[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/general-purpose.html#...
GP2 volume performance]), while gp3 volumes provide a constant 3000
IOPs rather than only being able to burst to that number before
running out of IO credits.

== Feedback ==

Amazon Linux 2023 has switched to gp3 over the Amazon Linux 2 default
of gp2, and we have not received any negative feedback on that change.

== Benefit to Fedora ==

The benefit for Fedora users in EC2 is that of cheaper, more
predictable, higher base-IOP, and more flexible IO performance by
default. Fedora will also be switching to use the latest generation in
general purpose EBS volume, fitting the desire of being First.

== Scope ==
* Proposal owners:
  * Change gp2 to gp3 in AMI registration.

* Other developers: N/A

* Release engineering:
* Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change) -->

* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
* Alignment with Objectives:


== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==
No affect on upgrades. Existing volumes remain gp2, and the volume
type can be set on instance launch if gp3 is not preferred.

== How To Test ==
No additional testing required beyond normal Fedora testing.

== User Experience ==

This change will be largely transparent to users who take the default
configuration, and do not run into IO limits on gp2 volumes today. The
change for those users will be purely in reduced costs.

For users who hit the burst limits of gp2, this change will improve
IOP throughput to a constant 3000 IOPS.

With the default volume size there is a slight throughput change when
going from gp2 to gp3 (128MB/sec to 125MB/sec).

== Dependencies ==
No dependencies

== Contingency Plan ==
* Contingency mechanism: (What to do?  Who will do it?) N/A
* Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
* Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change)


== Documentation ==

EC2 documentation details differences between gp2 and gp3:
- https://aws.amazon.com/ebs/general-purpose/
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/general-purpose.html

== Release Notes ==


-- 
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis

[Kevin Fenzi]

>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/CloudEC2gp3 
...snip...

>  * Proposal owners:
>    * Change gp2 to gp3 in AMI registration. 
I think this is a great idea and we should do it, but I have some
questions. :) 

We currently use 'fedimg' to upload ami images, and it currently uploads gp2
and 'standard' images. Do we need to then modify fedimg to upload gp3?

Is it intended that we stop uploading standard/gp2? Or do we keep them?

Or is this change only on the side of the person spinning up the
instances? If so, does awws convert gp2 to gp3 on the fly then?

Thanks for working on this!

kevin

[David Duncan]

>  ...snip...
>  
>  
>  I think this is a great idea and we should do it, but I have some
>  questions. :) 
>  
>  We currently use 'fedimg' to upload ami images, and it currently uploads gp2
>  and 'standard' images. Do we need to then modify fedimg to upload gp3?
>   
I am working on replacing the current version of fedimg to move from libcloud to boto3. 
The plan is to provide the updated version for this release.

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 04:43:43PM -0000, David Duncan wrote:
>  > ...snip...
>  > 
>  > 
>  > I think this is a great idea and we should do it, but I have some
>  > questions. :) 
>  > 
>  > We currently use 'fedimg' to upload ami images, and it currently uploads
> gp2
>  > and 'standard' images. Do we need to then modify fedimg to upload gp3?
>  > 
>  
>  I am working on replacing the current version of fedimg to move from libcloud to boto3. 
>  The plan is to provide the updated version for this release.  
So, this change depends on that being in service?
Might add it to the change as a dependency?

kevin