AWS Certified Solutions Architect – ProfessionalDesign Solutions for Organizational ComplexityMedium
A global media company has a large on-premises data center that hosts petabytes of archival media content. This content is rarely accessed but must be retained for regulatory compliance. The company wants to migrate this data to AWS to reduce storage costs and eliminate the operational burden of managing on-premises tape libraries. The migration needs to be cost-effective, secure, and ensure data integrity. Which AWS service and migration strategy should a solutions architect recommend?
- AUtilize AWS Transfer Family to move data to Amazon S3 One Zone-IA, then use a custom script to move it to Amazon S3 Glacier.
- BUse AWS DataSync to transfer data directly to Amazon S3 Standard, then lifecycle policy to Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
- COrder multiple AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized devices, migrate data to them, ship them to AWS, and ingest data into Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
- DEstablish an AWS Direct Connect connection and continuously transfer data to Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering with archiving enabled.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. Order multiple AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized devices, migrate data to them, ship them to AWS, and ingest data into Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
For petabytes of archival data that is rarely accessed, AWS Snowball Edge Storage Optimized is ideal for offline bulk data transfer, avoiding bandwidth limitations. Once in AWS, direct ingestion into Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the most cost-effective storage tier for long-term archives.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. AWS Transfer Family is for file transfer protocols (SFTP, FTPS, FTP) and typically for ongoing transfers, not massive bulk archival migration. S3 One Zone-IA is not as cost-effective as Glacier Deep Archive for rarely accessed archival data.
- B. AWS DataSync is suitable for online transfers, but for petabytes of archival data, the transfer time over the internet could be lengthy and costly. Transferring to S3 Standard first and then to Glacier Deep Archive adds an unnecessary step and cost.
- D. AWS Direct Connect provides dedicated network connectivity but is expensive for a large, one-time archival migration. S3 Intelligent-Tiering is good for unknown access patterns, but for 'rarely accessed archival content', Glacier Deep Archive is more cost-effective directly.
AWS Snowball Edge
A ruggedized device for petabyte-scale data transfer into and out of AWS, and for edge computing workloads.
- Comes in Storage Optimized, Compute Optimized, and Compute Optimized with GPU variants.
- Used for large-scale offline data migration.
- Provides local storage and compute capabilities at the edge.
Memory trick: Snowball for big archives, Deep Archive for deep savings.