AWS Snow Family

AWS Snow Family

  • AWS Snow Family helps physically transport up to exabytes of data into and out of AWS.
  • AWS Snow Family helps customers that need to run operations in austere, non-data center environments, and in locations where there’s a lack of consistent network connectivity.
  • Snow Family devices are AWS owned & managed and integrate with AWS security, monitoring, storage management, and computing capabilities.
  • AWS Snow Family, comprised of AWS Snowcone, AWS Snowball, and AWS Snowmobile, offers a number of physical devices and capacity points, most with built-in computing capabilities.

AWS Snowcone

  • AWS Snowcone is portable, rugged, and secure that provides edge computing and data transfer devices.
  • Snowcone can be used to collect, process, and move data to AWS, either offline by shipping the device, or online with AWS DataSync.
  • AWS Snowcone stores data securely in edge locations, and can run edge computing workloads that use AWS IoT Greengrass or EC2 instances.
  • Snowcone devices are small and weigh 4.5 lbs. (2.1 kg), so you can carry one in a backpack or fit it in tight spaces for IoT, vehicular, or even drone use cases.

AWS Snowball

  • AWS Snowball is a data migration and edge computing device that comes in two device options:
    • Compute Optimized
      • Snowball Edge Compute Optimized devices provide 52 vCPUs, 42 terabytes of usable block or object storage, and an optional GPU for use cases such as advanced machine learning and full-motion video analysis in disconnected environments.
    • Storage Optimized.
      • Snowball Edge Storage Optimized devices provide 40 vCPUs of compute capacity coupled with 80 terabytes of usable block or S3-compatible object storage.
      • It is well-suited for local storage and large-scale data transfer.
  • Customers can use these two options for data collection, machine learning and processing, and storage in environments with intermittent connectivity (such as manufacturing, industrial, and transportation) or in extremely remote locations (such as military or maritime operations) before shipping it back to AWS.
  • Snowball devices may also be rack mounted and clustered together to build larger, temporary installations.

AWS Snowmobile

  • AWS Snowmobile moves up to 100 PB of data in a 45-foot long ruggedized shipping container and is ideal for multi-petabyte or Exabyte-scale digital media migrations and data center shutdowns.
  • A Snowmobile arrives at the customer site and appears as a network-attached data store for more secure, high-speed data transfer.
  • After data is transferred to Snowmobile, it is driven back to an AWS Region where the data is loaded into S3.
  • Snowmobile is tamper-resistant, waterproof, and temperature controlled with multiple layers of logical and physical security – including encryption, fire suppression, dedicated security personnel, GPS tracking, alarm monitoring, 24/7 video surveillance, and an escort security vehicle during transit.

AWS Snow Family Feature Comparision

AWS Snow Family Feature Comparision

AWS Certification Exam Practice Questions

  • Questions are collected from Internet and the answers are marked as per my knowledge and understanding (which might differ with yours).
  • AWS services are updated everyday and both the answers and questions might be outdated soon, so research accordingly.
  • AWS exam questions are not updated to keep up the pace with AWS updates, so even if the underlying feature has changed the question might not be updated
  • Open to further feedback, discussion and correction.
  1. A company wants to transfer petabyte-scale of data to AWS for their analytics, however are constrained on their internet connectivity? Which AWS service can help them transfer the data quickly?
    1. S3 enhanced uploader
    2. Snowmobile
    3. Snowball
    4. Direct Connect
  2. A company wants to transfer its video library data, which runs in exabytes, to AWS. Which AWS service can help the company transfer the data?
    1. Snowmobile
    2. Snowball
    3. S3 upload
    4. S3 enhanced uploader

References

AWS_Snow