Note_Tech

All technological notes.

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AWS Storage - Snow Family

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• AWS Storage - Snow Family
  • AWS Snow Family
    • Data Migrations with AWS Snow Family
      • Snowball Edge (for data transfers)
      • Snowcone \& Snowcone SSD
      • Snowmobile
      • Snow Family for Data Migrations
      • Usage Process
    • Edge Computing
  • OpsHub
    • Solution Architecture: Snowball into Glacier
    • Hands-on

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AWS Snow Family

• Highly-secure, portable devices to collect and process data at the edge, and migrate data into and out of AWS

	Snowcone	Snowball Edge	Snowmobile
Edge computing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Data migration	Yes	Yes	No

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Data Migrations with AWS Snow Family

• Challenges of data migration:

  • Limited connectivity
  • Limited bandwidth
  • High network cost
  • Shared bandwidth (can’t maximize the line)
  • Connection stability

• AWS Snow Family:

  • offline devices to perform data migrations
  • through physical route, not network route.

• If it takes more than a week to transfer over the network, use Snowball devices!

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Snowball Edge (for data transfers)

• Snowball Edge

  • Physical data transport solution:
  • move TBs or PBs of data in or out of AWS
  • Alternative to moving data over the network (and paying network fees)
• Pay per data transfer job

• Provide block storage and Amazon S3-compatible object storage

• 2 flavors:

• Snowball Edge Storage Optimized

  • 80 TB of HDD capacity for block volume and S3 compatible object storage

• Snowball Edge Compute Optimized

  • 42 TB of HDD or 28TB NVMe capacity for block volume and S3 compatible object storage
• Use cases:
  • large data cloud migrations,
  • DC decommission,
  • disaster recovery

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Snowcone & Snowcone SSD

• Small, portable computing, anywhere, rugged & secure, withstands harsh environments
• Light (4.5 pounds, 2.1 kg)

• Device used for edge computing, storage, and data transfer

• Snowcone

  • 8 TB of HDD Storage

• Snowcone SSD

  • 14 TB of SSD Storage
• Use Snowcone where Snowball does not fit (space constrained environment)

• Must provide your own battery/cables

• 2 ways to send back to AWS
  • Can be sent back to AWS offline,
  • connect it to internet and use AWS DataSync to send data

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Snowmobile

• Transfer exabytes of data (1 EB = 1,000 PB = 1,000,000 TBs)
• Each Snowmobile has 100 PB of capacity (use multiple in parallel)
• High security:
  • temperature controlled, GPS, 24/7 video surveillance
• Better than Snowball if you transfer more than 10 PB

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Snow Family for Data Migrations

	Snowcone & Snowcone SSD	Snowball Edge Storage Optimized	Snowmobile
Storage Capacity	8 TB HDD, 14 TB SSD	80 TB usable	< 100 PB
Migration Size	Up to 24 TB, online and offline	Up to petabytes offline	Up to exabytes, offline
DataSync agent	Pre-installed

• Sample Q:
  • You have hundreds of Terabytes that you want to migrate to AWS S3 as soon as possible. You tried to use your network bandwidth and it will take around 3 weeks to complete the upload process. What is the recommended approach to using in this situation?
    • Snowball Edge

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Usage Process

1. Request Snowball devices from the AWS console for delivery
2. Install the snowball client / AWS OpsHub on your servers
3. Connect the snowball to your servers and copy files using the client
4. Ship back the device when you’re done (goes to the right AWS facility)
5. Data will be loaded into an S3 bucket
6. Snowball is completely wiped

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Edge Computing

• Process data while it’s being created on an edge location

• edge location

  • A truck on the road, a ship on the sea, a mining station underground…

• These locations may have

  • Limited / no internet access
  • Limited / no easy access to computing power

• We setup a Snowball Edge / Snowcone device to do edge computing

• Use cases of Edge Computing:

  • Preprocess data
  • Machine learning at the edge
  • Transcoding media streams

• Eventually (if need be) we can ship back the device to AWS (for transferring data for example)

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• Snowcone & Snowcone SSD(smaller)

  • 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory, wired or wireless access
  • USB-C power using a cord or the optional battery

• Snowball Edge – Compute Optimized

  • 104 vCPUs, 416 GiB of RAM
  • Optional GPU (useful for video processing or machine learning)
  • 28TB NVMe or 42TB HDD usable storage
  • Storage Clustering available (up to 16 nodes)

• Snowball Edge – Storage Optimized

  • Up to 40 vCPUs, 80 GiB of RAM, 80 TB storage

• All: Can run EC2 Instances & AWS Lambda functions (using AWS IoT Greengrass)

• Long-term deployment options:

  • 1 and 3 years discounted pricing

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OpsHub

• Historically, to use Snow Family devices, you needed a CLI (Command Line Interface tool)
• Today, you can use AWS OpsHub (a GUI software you install on your computer / laptop) to manage your Snow Family Device
  • Unlocking and configuring single or clustered devices
  • Transferring files
  • Launching and managing instances running on Snow Family Devices
  • Monitor device metrics (storage capacity, active instances on your device)
  • Launch compatible AWS services on your devices (ex: Amazon EC2 instances, AWS DataSync, Network File System (NFS))

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Solution Architecture: Snowball into Glacier

• Snowball cannot import to Glacier directly
• You must use Amazon S3 first, in combination with an S3 lifecycle policy

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Hands-on

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