AWS Snow Family
Cloud Provider: AWS
What is AWS Snow Family
The AWS Snow Family is a collection of physical devices and services designed by Amazon Web Services to facilitate data migration and edge computing tasks by transferring large volumes of data into and out of the AWS cloud securely and efficiently, without relying solely on internet connectivity.
The AWS Snow Family is an innovative collection of physical devices and solutions designed to aid organizations in moving large volumes of data into and out of the AWS cloud, as well as processing data at the edge, without relying on the internet. This offering is particularly beneficial for environments with limited connectivity or in circumstances where transferring data over the internet would be too slow, costly, or pose security concerns.
The Snow Family encompasses several devices and services, each tailored to specific data transfer and edge computing needs, ranging from small, portable devices to truck-sized data transport solutions. At the smaller end of the spectrum lies the AWS Snowcone, a compact, highly portable device designed for edge computing and data transfer tasks. It is especially suited for scenarios requiring mobility, including remote and disconnected environments. Despite its small size, Snowcone is rugged and secure, built to withstand challenging environmental conditions while securely processing and transferring data. Moving up in size and capacity, AWS Snowball provides a more powerful solution for data migration and edge computing.
Snowball devices come in two variants: Snowball Edge Storage Optimized, offering a blend of storage capacity and computing power, and Snowball Edge Compute Optimized, which provides additional computing capabilities alongside storage. These devices are robust, secure, and capable of handling petabyte-scale data transfer jobs, making them ideal for larger-scale migrations and on-site data processing tasks. For massive data transfer needs, AWS introduces the Snowmobile, a literal semi-trailer truck capable of moving exabytes of data into AWS.
The Snowmobile is a compelling solution for transferring enormous data sets that would otherwise take months or years to move over the internet. It is particularly useful for large-scale data center migrations, multimedia content libraries, or extensive archival projects. Each member of the AWS Snow Family is built to ensure data security during transit and operation. Devices are equipped with encryption, tamper-resistant enclosures, and other security measures to protect data.
Furthermore, AWS integrates seamlessly with the Snow Family devices, facilitating the smooth transfer of data into various storage services such as Amazon S3, making it immediately available for use in cloud-based applications and services.
In essence, the AWS Snow Family addresses a wide range of data transfer and edge computing needs, from small field operations to vast data center migrations, offering versatility, security, and efficiency. By providing robust solutions for offline data transfer and edge computing, AWS allows organizations to overcome bandwidth limitations, reduce network costs, and securely migrate and process data at scale, unlocking new possibilities for leveraging cloud resources in diverse operational contexts.
Key AWS Snow Family Features
The AWS Snow Family facilitates secure, offline data transfer and edge computing, offering devices for physical data transport, edge processing capabilities, and a scalable suite of solutions compliant with major standards.
AWS Snow Family devices physically transport up to exabytes of data into and out of AWS, bypassing the internet to speed up the data migration process and reduce network costs.
Certain devices in the Snow Family, such as Snowcone and Snowball Edge, provide local computing and storage capabilities, allowing for data processing and analysis to be performed at the edge, closer to where data is generated.
The Snow Family devices offer strong encryption, tamper-resistant enclosures, and are compliant with various standards and certifications, ensuring the secure transfer and storage of sensitive data.
Designed for environments with limited or no connectivity, AWS Snow Family supports offline data transfer scenarios, enabling data movement in remote, disconnected, or austere environments.
With a variety of devices for different scales of data workloads, from terabytes with Snowcone to petabytes with Snowmobile, AWS Snow Family offers flexible and scalable solutions for data transfer and edge computing.
AWS Snow Family Use Cases
AWS Snow Family supports large-scale data migration, data center decommission, edge computing, content distribution, and disaster recovery by securely and efficiently moving large volumes of data into and out of AWS.
Companies needing to transfer petabytes of data to AWS can utilize the Snow Family for a secure and cost-efficient solution, circumventing internet bandwidth limitations and ensuring data integrity during transportation.
Organizations looking to decommission their data centers can use Snowball devices for moving valuable data to AWS, offering a hassle-free method to ensure data is safely transitioned to the cloud as part of their IT strategy shift.
Snowball Edge provides a robust platform for running applications and processing data at or near the source, ideal for locations with limited connectivity, therefore ensuring operational continuity and reducing latency in data processing.
Media companies can leverage Snowball Edge to efficiently distribute large amounts of content to remote locations by preloading the content on the devices and shipping them to the edge of the network, streamlining the content delivery process.
In the event of a disaster, companies can use AWS Snowmobile and Snowball devices to quickly move critical data off-site or into AWS, ensuring business continuity by mitigating the risk of data loss and enabling rapid recovery.
Services AWS Snow Family integrates with
Supports running Amazon EC2 instances on Snowball Edge devices for edge computing scenarios, providing compute resources close to the data.
Facilitates the transfer of data between on-premises storage systems and AWS storage services via Snow Family devices, optimizing data migration processes.
Allows running serverless compute functions using Lambda functions directly on Snowball Edge devices to preprocess, filter, and analyze data in the field.
Enables data transfer from and to Amazon S3 buckets for backup, archiving, disaster recovery, and data migration.
Enables deployment and local execution of IoT applications on Snowball Edge devices, facilitating edge processing and local device control.
AWS Snow Family pricing models
AWS Snow Family pricing consists of service fees per job, additional day charges beyond initial period, data transfer fees with some exemptions, and lost device fees, with Snowmobile pricing being quote-based for large data transfers.