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AWS Snowball

AWS Snowball - Service accelerates the transfer of offline or remote storage data to the cloud and designed for petabyte-scale migrations. The Snow Large Data Migration Manager tracks each stage of multi-device jobs, ensuring smooth and organized transfers. Easily move terabytes of data without storage or compute limits, enhancing application performance in disconnected edge environments. Snowball’s rugged chassis, integrated logistics, and tamper-evident box secure your data in transit, ensuring quick and safe delivery. Rely on AWS Snowball for efficient large-scale data migrations and faster cloud adoption.

Key definitions for AWS Snowball:

  • Compliance

    AWS Snowball devices are compliant with the stringent requirements of highly regulated industries in both the public and private sectors, meeting HIPAA and FedRamp compliance standards. These standards are either mandatory or highly preferred for choosing solutions in these industries

  • Built for edge computing & data migration

    AWS Snowball is offered in two variants: Snowball Edge Compute Optimized and Snowball Edge Storage Optimized. The Compute Optimized version is tailored for high-performance workloads, while the Storage Optimized version is designed for large-scale data migrations and capacity-heavy tasks.

    Snowball Edge Compute Optimized provides substantial computing power for applications such as machine learning, full-motion video analysis, analytics, and local computing stacks. It features 104 vCPUs, 416 GiB of memory, and an optional NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPU. For storage, it offers 28 TB of usable NVMe SSD capacity for Amazon S3-compatible storage or EBS-compatible block volumes. These devices support Amazon EC2 sbe-c and sbe-g instances, equivalent to C5, M5a, G3, and P3 instances.

    Snowball Edge Storage Optimized devices excel in large-scale data migrations, recurring transfer workflows, and local computing requiring higher capacity. They provide 80 TB of HDD or 210 TB of NVMe capacity for Amazon S3-compatible object storage. The 80 TB model includes 40 vCPUs and 80 GiB of RAM.

  • Fast data migration

    Snowball devices come with high-speed network connections, supporting 10 Gbps to 100 Gbps links via dual SFP+ and QSFP+ copper and optical interfaces. Encryption is handled on the device itself, enhancing data throughput rates and shortening data migration times

  • GPU support

    Snowball Edge Compute Optimized includes an optional NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPU and Amazon EC2 instances to enhance application performance in disconnected environments. With the GPU option, you can execute applications such as advanced machine learning and full motion video analysis in locations with limited or no connectivity

  • Clustering

    You can create a storage cluster with multiple Snowball devices to increase storage durability for on-premise applications running edge computing jobs. To create a storage cluster, select the option when setting up a new job in the Console. If a device fails, you can easily order a replacement through the Console. This feature is available for local storage and compute jobs but not for data migration jobs or devices with EKS Anywhere enabled

  • Kubernetes

    You can deploy an Amazon EKS Anywhere cluster using one or more Snowball devices for your Kubernetes deployments. When creating a new job in the Console, in the Features and options step, you can select the number of devices for your Kubernetes cluster and choose to include Amazon EKS Anywhere on them

  • Amazon S3 compatible storage

    Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snowball Edge local compute and storage devices allows applications to interact with storage through an S3 API compatible endpoint accessed via AWS OpsHub, the S3 SDK, or CLI. Similarly, data transfer on Snowball Edge data migration devices can be performed using the S3 Adapter through an S3 API compatible endpoint, also accessed through AWS OpsHub, the S3 SDK, or CLI

  • Block storage

    Block storage can be run on both Snowball Edge Compute Optimized and Snowball Edge Storage Optimized devices. Users can attach block storage volumes to Amazon EC2 instances using a subset of the Amazon EBS API, which allows for the configuration and management of volumes on Snowball devices. This capability simplifies developing applications in EC2 and running them in disconnected and remote locations. Snowball supports both performance-optimized and capacity-optimized volume types

Service integrates with:

Usage use cases

  • Migrate data at petabyte-scale.

    Move databases,backups, archives, healthcare records, analytics datasets, IoT sensor data and media content to the cloud - especially when network conditions are limited

  • Process and analyze data locally.

    Run Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) within Amazon EC2 and deploy AWS Lambda code on Snowball Edge devices with machine learning (ML) or other applications

  • Optimize manufacturing data.

    Collect and analyze on-site factory data to refine processes and improve safety, efficiency, and productivity

  • Disaster Recovery.

    In the event of a natural disaster or system failure, AWS Snowball can quickly transfer large volumes of backup data to AWS, enabling rapid recovery and continuity of operations

  • Media and Entertainment.

    Production companies can use AWS Snowball to transfer massive video files and high-resolution media assets to AWS for post-production, editing, and distribution, reducing transfer times and storage costs

  • Scientific Research.

    Research institutions dealing with large datasets from experiments or simulations can use AWS Snowball to move their data to AWS, where powerful computing resources can be utilized for analysis, ensuring timely and efficient data processing

FAQ for AWS Snowball

  • What is an AWS snowball?

    Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport solution that uses secure appliances to transfer large volumes of data into and out of the AWS cloud. It addresses common challenges of large-scale data transfers, including high network costs, long transfer times, and security issues

  • What is a snowball used for?

    Snowballs are often used in games such as snowball fights. Additionally, a snowball can grow into a large ball of snow by rolling a smaller one across a snow-covered surface, collecting more snow as it rolls. The terms "snowball effect" and "snowballing" are derived from this process

  • When should you use a snowball?

    The "snowball method", simply put, means paying off the smallest of all your loans as quickly as possible. Once that debt is paid, you take the money you were putting toward that payment and roll it onto the next-smallest debt owed. Ideally, this process would continue until all accounts are paid off

  • What is the difference between AWS snowball and snowball Edge?

    AWS Snowball is available in two device types. Snowball Edge Compute Optimized with more computing capabilities, suited for higher performance workloads and Snowball Edge Storage Optimized with more storage, which is suited for large-scale data migrations and capacity-oriented workloads