A large pharmaceutical company has a massive archive of research data (petabytes) stored on-premises on magnetic tapes. This data is rarely accessed but must be retained for regulatory compliance for decades. The company wants to migrate this archive to AWS to reduce physical storage costs and improve long-term durability. Access times for retrieval can be several hours, but the cost must be absolutely minimized. How should the company migrate and store this data in AWS?
- AUse AWS Storage Gateway (Tape Gateway) to transfer data and store it in Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
- BUse AWS Snowball Edge to transfer data and store it in Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval.
- CUse AWS Snowmobile to transfer data and store it in Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering.
- DUse AWS Direct Connect for transfer and store it in Amazon S3 One Zone-IA.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Use AWS Storage Gateway (Tape Gateway) to transfer data and store it in Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
Given the petabytes of data on magnetic tapes, decades of retention, access times of several hours, and the paramount need for cost minimization, AWS Storage Gateway (Tape Gateway) and S3 Glacier Deep Archive are the ideal combination. Tape Gateway facilitates a seamless migration from virtual tape libraries to S3 Glacier, while Deep Archive offers the lowest storage cost for long-term, rarely accessed data.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Snowball Edge is for TB-scale data, not petabytes. S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval is more expensive than Deep Archive when cost is the absolute priority for decades of retention.
- C. Snowmobile is appropriate for petabyte-scale transfers, but S3 Intelligent-Tiering is not the most cost-effective solution for rarely accessed archival data; it's designed for unknown or changing access patterns.
- D. AWS Direct Connect for petabytes would be prohibitively slow and expensive for a one-time migration compared to Snow Family or Tape Gateway. S3 One Zone-IA does not offer the same durability or cost profile as Glacier Deep Archive for multi-decade, rarely accessed data.
AWS Storage Gateway (Tape Gateway) and S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Tape Gateway virtualizes physical tape libraries for existing backup software, sending data to S3 Glacier storage classes. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage class for long-term data archiving with retrieval times of 12 hours or more.
- Tape Gateway replaces physical tapes with virtual tapes in AWS.
- S3 Glacier Deep Archive offers sub-dollar per TB per month storage.
- Ideal for regulatory compliance, disaster recovery, and long-term retention.
Memory trick: Tape Gateway tapes into Glacier Deep Archive for the cheapest long-term cold storage.