AWS offers two networked block storage options as a service with Elastic Block Storage (EBS): Standard and Provisioned IOPS. The main difference between the two is performance, with EBS Provisioned IOPS being the higher-performance option but requiring specific conditions to be met for optimal performance. To optimize EBS volumes for Provisioned IOPS, it's essential to understand how performance is measured in input/output operations per second (IOPS) and ensure that the volume meets certain conditions, such as maintaining a low average queue length, handling read and write operations on blocks of 256 KB or less, and not exceeding total read/write operations above 128MB/s. Monitoring key EBS performance metrics, such as VolumeQueueLength, is crucial to maintain optimal performance for Provisioned IOPS in EBS.