15. Migration & Transfer

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AWS Snow Family

The AWS Snow Family comprises a set of physical devices designed for data transfer, edge computing, and data migration to and from AWS. These devices help you manage data migration challenges, especially where high bandwidth connectivity is not available or data volumes are too large to transfer online.

Components of the AWS Snow Family

AWS Snowcone

AWS Snowball

AWS Snowmobile

1. AWS Snowcone

Description: The smallest member of the Snow Family, Snowcone is a portable, rugged, and secure edge computing and data transfer device.

Snowcone is available in two flavors:

Snowcone – Snowcone has two vCPUs, 4 GB of memory, and 8 TB of hard disk drive (HDD) based storage.

Snowcone SSD – Snowcone SSD has two vCPUs, 4 GB of memory, and 14 TB of solid state drive (SSD) based storage.

Use Cases:

Collecting data in remote locations.

Running edge computing applications.

Data migration from edge locations to AWS.

For edge computing applications, to collect data, process the data to gain immediate insight, and then transfer the data online to AWS.

To transfer data that is continuously generated by sensors or machines online to AWS in a factory or at other edge locations.

To distribute media, scientific, or other content from AWS storage services to your partners and customers.

To aggregate content by transferring media, scientific, or other content from your edge locations to AWS.

For one-time data migration scenarios where your data is ready to be transferred, Snowcone offers a quick and low-cost way to transfer up to 8 TB or 14 TB of data to the AWS Cloud by shipping the device back to AWS.

Features:

Storage Capacity: Up to 14 TB of usable storage with Snowcone SSD.

Connectivity: Supports Wi-Fi, ethernet, and USB-C.

Portability: Weighs 4.5 lbs, easily portable.

Durability: Designed to withstand harsh environments.

Edge Computing: Runs EC2 instances and AWS IoT Greengrass for local processing and analytics.

2. AWS Snowball Edge

Description: A durable and secure data transport device, Snowball Edge devices have three options for device configurations—Storage Optimized, Compute Optimized, and Compute Optimized with GPU.

Use Cases:

Large-scale data migrations.

Edge computing applications.

Disaster recovery.

Data transfer where network speeds are insufficient.

Features:

Storage Optimized: 80 TB usable storage, ideal for large data migrations.

Compute Optimized: 42 TB usable storage with additional computing power (52 vCPUs, 208 GiB RAM).

Data Transfer Speed: Network adapters with transfer speeds of up to 100 Gbit/second.

Security: End-to-end encryption and tamper-evident enclosures.

Edge Computing: Supports running EC2 instances and AWS Lambda functions for local processing.

Large amounts of storage capacity or compute functionality for devices. This depends on the options you choose when you create your job.

Encryption is enforced, protecting your data at rest and in physical transit.

You can import or export data between your local environments and Amazon S3, and physically transport the data with one or more devices without using the internet.

Snowball Edge devices are their own rugged box. The built-in E Ink display changes to show your shipping label when the device is ready to ship.

Snowball Edge devices come with an on-board LCD display that can be used to manage network connections and get service status information.

You can cluster Snowball Edge devices for local storage and compute jobs to achieve data durability across 3 to 16 devices and locally grow or shrink storage on demand.

You can use Amazon EKS Anywhere on Snowball Edge devices for Kubernetes workloads.

Snowball Edge devices have Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2 compatible endpoints available, enabling programmatic use cases.

Snowball Edge devices support the new sbe1, sbe-c, and sbe-g instance types, which you can use to run compute instances on the device using Amazon Machine Images (AMIs).

Snowball Edge supports these data transfer protocols for data migration:

NFSv3

NFSv4

NFSv4.1

Amazon S3 over HTTP or HTTPS (via API compatible with AWS CLI version 1.16.14 and earlier)

3. AWS Snowmobile

Description: An exabyte-scale data transfer service used to move massive volumes of data to AWS.

Use Cases:

Large-scale data migrations.

Data center shutdowns.

Content archives.

Features:

Storage Capacity: Up to 100 PB per Snowmobile.

Security: Multi-layered security with 24/7 video surveillance, GPS tracking, and tamper-resistant features.

Transport: Delivered in a 45-foot long ruggedized shipping container.

Connectivity: High-speed data transfer using a direct fiber connection.

Common Features

End-to-End Encryption: All data transferred is encrypted using 256-bit encryption.

Data Integrity: Built-in hardware validation to ensure data integrity during transfer.

Tamper Evident: Devices are designed to be tamper-evident to ensure data security.

Management Console: Managed via the AWS Management Console, making it easy to order, track, and manage data transfers.

Data Import/Export: Once the data transfer is complete, AWS handles the import/export process, making it seamless for the user.

Use Cases and Benefits

Data Migration:

Offline Data Transfer: Efficient for transferring large datasets when network bandwidth is a bottleneck.

Data Center Migration: Ideal for migrating entire data centers to the cloud.

Edge Computing:

Local Processing: Perform local data processing and analytics before transferring data to AWS.

Disconnected Environments: Operate in remote or disconnected environments with local compute and storage capabilities.

Disaster Recovery:

Backup and Restore: Securely backup and restore large datasets in case of data center outages.

Content Delivery and Collection:

Media and Entertainment: Collect and transfer large media files from production sites to AWS.

Steps for Using AWS Snow Family

Order Device:

Use the AWS Management Console to order a Snow Family device based on your needs.

Data Transfer:

Connect the device to your network and use the Snowball client to transfer data.

For Snowcone, use AWS OpsHub for device management and data transfer.

Return Device:

Ship the device back to AWS using the provided packaging and instructions.

Data Import:

AWS imports the data into your specified S3 bucket and notifies you when the process is complete.

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What Is AWS Snowcone? - AWS Snowcone User Guide This AWS Snowcone User Guide describes how to obtain, configure, and use a Snowcone to access the storage and compute power of the AWS Cloud in places where an internet connection might not be an option. docs.aws.amazon.com⁠

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