AWS Snowball

Features of Snowball

AWS Snowball with the Snowball device has the following features:

• There's no necessity to buy or maintain your own hardware devices.
   
• Enforced encryption protects the data at rest and also in physical transit.
   
• In US Regions, 80 TB and 50 TB models are available, but the 50 TB model is available in all other AWS Regions.
   
• You can manage your jobs programmatically with the job management API and the AWS Snow Family Management Console.
   
• Local data transfers can be performed between your on-premises data center and a Snowball. These transfers can be performed through the Snowball client, a standalone downloadable client.

How does AWS Snowball work?

Import:

Each imported job needs a single Snowball appliance. A Snowball is shipped to you after creating a job in the AWS Snow Family Management Console or the job management API. After it arrives in a few days, connect the Snowball to your network and transfer the data you want to be imported into Amazon S3 onto that Snowball using the Snowball client or the Amazon S3 Adapter for Snowball.

Once you're done transferring data, ship the Snowball back to AWS, and your data will be imported to Amazon S3.

Export:

Export jobs can use any number of Snowball appliances. After creating a job in the AWS Snow Family Management Console or the job management API, a listing operation starts in Amazon S3, splitting your job into parts. Each job part can be up to 80 TB in size and has precisely one Snowball associated with it. After creating your parts, your first job part enters the Preparing Snowball status.

Then, your data starts being exported onto a Snowball. Exporting all the data takes one business day. However, this process can even take longer. The AWS gets the Snowball ready for pickup by your region's carrier, Once the export is done. After the Snowball arrives at your data center or office, connect the Snowball to your network and transfer the data you want to be exported to your servers with the help of the Snowball client or the Amazon S3 Adapter. 

Ship the Snowball back to AWS once you're done transferring data. After receiving the returned Snowball for your export job part, complete erasure is performed. This erasure follows the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800-88 standards. This step marks the completion of that particular job part. If there are more job parts, the next job part is now prepared for shipping.

Getting Your Job Completion Report and Logs in the Console

You'll get a downloadable PDF job report whenever data is imported into or exported out of Amazon S3. This report is available at the very end of the import process for import jobs. The job report provides you insight into your Amazon S3 data transfer state. The report includes details about your job or job part for your records. 

You can look at the two associated logs: a success log and a failure log for deeper visibility into the status of your transferred objects. The logs are saved in CSV format, and the name of each log includes the ID of the job.

Cancelling Jobs in the Console

A job can be canceled for any reason before it enters the Preparing Snowball status. Jobs can be canceled only if they have job-created status. Once a job begins processing, it cannot be canceled.

To cancel a job

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the AWS Snow Family Management Console.
2. Search for and choose your job from the table.
3. From Actions, choose Cancel job.

Data Protection in AWS Snowball

Protection of your AWS account credentials is recommended. Setting up individual user accounts with AWS Identity and Access Management is necessary so that each user is given only the required permissions to fulfill their job duties. Your data can be secured in the following ways:

• Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) with each account.
• Use SSL/TLS to communicate with AWS resources.
• Set up API and user activity logging with AWS CloudTrail.
• Use AWS encryption solutions and all default security controls within AWS services.
• Use advanced managed security services such as Amazon Macie, which assists in discovering and securing personal data that is stored in Amazon S3.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is AWS Snowball?

The AWS Snowball service transfers a large amount of data using physical storage devices between Amazon S3 and onsite data storage locations faster than the internet. Working with AWS Snowball saves your time and money. Using AWS Snowball's powerful interfaces, you can create jobs, track data, and track the status of your jobs to completion.

When should AWS snowball be used?

Snowball is intended for transferring large amounts of data. If you want to transfer less than 10 TB of data between your on-premises data centers and Amazon S3, Snowball might not be your most economical choice.

Conclusion

In this article, we have extensively discussed the Snowball service of Amazon Web Services. After going through this article, are you interested to explore more? Don't worry! Coding Ninjas has got you covered. You can check Amazon Web Services, Introduction to AWS, AWS Features, AWS Saving plans, AWS Snowcone, AWS Server Migration Service, and AWS DeepLens. We hope that this blog has helped you enhance your knowledge, and if you wish to learn more, check out our Coding Ninjas Blog site and visit our Library. Do upvote our blog to help other ninjas grow.

Happy Learning!