Amazon Web Services (AWS) today showed off Amazon Snowball, a 45-pound piece of hardware for storing 50TB of data that can be shipped to AWS to be stored in the cloud.
This is a pretty wild thing for AWS to launch, because AWS provides cloud infrastructure and services, not bespoke hardware. It’s what’s distinguished AWS from other enterprise software vendors, including IBM. But so be it — Snowball is actually a pretty interesting idea when you realize AWS just wants to get customer data into the cloud as fast as possible.
Built around appliances that Amazon owns and maintains, the new model is meant to be faster, cleaner, simpler, more efficient, and more secure. You don’t have to buy storage devices or upgrade your network.
Snowball is designed for customers that need to move lots of data (generally 10 terabytes or more) to AWS on a one-time or recurring basis. You simply request one or more from the AWS Management Console and wait a few days for the appliance to be delivered to your site. If you want to import a lot of data, you can order one or more Snowball appliances and run them in parallel.
Multiple Snowballs can be connected together. And they’re quite durable, too, so companies won’t need to worry about what happens when they drop Snowballs into the mail.
The new Snowball appliance is purpose-built for efficient data storage and transfer. It is rugged enough to withstand a 6 G jolt, and (at 50 lbs) light enough for one person to carry. It is entirely self-contained, with 110 Volt power and a 10 GB network connection on the back and an E Ink display/control panel on the front. It is weather-resistant and serves as its own shipping container; it can go from your mail room to your data center and back again with no packing or unpacking hassle to slow things down. In addition to being physically rugged and tamper-resistant, AWS Snowball detects tampering attempts.
There is a usage charge of $200 per job, plus shipping charges that are based on your destination and the selected shipment method. As part of this charge, you have up to 10 days (starting the day after delivery) to copy your data to the appliance and ship it out. Extra days are $15 each.
You can import data to the US Standard and US West (Oregon) regions, with more on the way.
