AWS discontinues snowmobile service

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has officially ceased operations of the Snowmobile service, a service for the physical transportation of data. The Snowmobile service, which was launched in 2016, transported data in a mobile 45-foot container by truck from customer sites to AWS facilities. AWS launched the Snowmobile service in 2016 at its annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas as an innovation in the field of data management. The then AWS CEO and current Amazon CEO Andy Jassy personally presented the 18-wheeler semitrailer truck, which can transport up to 100 petabytes (PB) of data directly from company locations to the AWS cloud, at re:Invent. The offering was based on the already well-known Snowball, a smaller unit for data transfer, and was intended to set new standards in the efficiency of data storage and transfer.

Move large amounts of data faster

Companies often have data volumes in the exabyte range (1,000 PB), which would take decades to transfer via traditional Internet connections. This is where Snowmobile comes in: While it would take around 26 years to transfer one exabyte over a 10Gbps line, ten Snowmobile units reduced this time to less than six months. Each Snowmobile was capable of transmitting data via fiber optic cable at a speed of up to one terabit per second, so that a truck could be fully loaded in around ten days.

Each snowmobile was robustly built and, according to AWS, tamper-proof. During transit, the data was protected by various mechanisms, including video surveillance, GPS tracking and a constant connection back to AWS via mobile radio or satellite. In addition, security vehicles and guards can accompany the physical data transfer. One of Snowmobile's first customers was DigitalGlobe, a company specializing in satellite imagery, which migrated around 100PB of data to AWS in a comparatively short time.

The end of an extraordinary solution

After almost eight years, AWS has now discontinued the Snowmobile option, as there are now more cost-effective options for data transfer that, with a few exceptions, make the physical transportation of data superfluous. In fact, the Snowmobile service was not without its challenges in terms of power, cooling, network connectivity and security. These challenges, along with the introduction of newer technologies such as AWS DataSync, ultimately led to the decision to eliminate the need for large physical data transfers in the future. DataSync and other services enable a much faster and easier migration of data to the AWS cloud compared to 2016.

AWS continues to rely on Snowball Edge and Snowcone

However, after the end of Snowmobile, AWS continues to offer offline data transfer solutions such as Snowball Edge and Snowcone, which are used in special situations. Snowball Edge is a mobile, portable device that is available in various configurations in terms of computing power and storage capacity. The main function is to transfer data from the customer to the AWS cloud, but Snowball Edge can also provide local computing power and storage in environments with limited IT infrastructure. The device is usually sent from AWS to the customer's location and back to AWS after the data has been transferred to the Edge. There, the data is then placed in the cloud, which all in all significantly speeds up the data entry process if the customer's internet connection is too slow.

AWS Snowcone, on the other hand, is a small, portable edge computing and data transfer device designed for applications where traditional network connectivity is limited or non-existent. Snowcone users can load data directly onto the device, perform local processing, and then transfer the data to the AWS cloud by shipping the device or via an online connection. Snowcone is particularly useful in deployment scenarios where high mobility is required or space for equipment is limited. These can be scientific research missions in remote areas as well as mobile deployments with telecommunications providers or in the healthcare sector.

Security Engineering on AWS

In the course Security Engineering on AWS you will be trained to become "AWS Certified Security" in three days. The course covers basic security practices and responsibilities that need to be considered when using the AWS Cloud. Participants will learn how to build secure application infrastructures and protect applications and data from common security threats. The course shows how to perform and automate security audits to ensure high security standards on an ongoing basis. An important aspect of the course is also the creation and configuration of automated and repeatable deployments using tools such as AMIs and AWS CloudFormation.