The AWS Storage Gateway service seamlessly enables hybrid storage between on-premises storage environments and the AWS Cloud. It combines a multi-protocol storage appliance with highly efficient network connectivity to Amazon cloud storage services, delivering local performance with virtually unlimited scale. Customers use it in remote offices and datacenters for hybrid cloud workloads, backup and restore, archive, disaster recovery, and tiered storage.
The Storage Gateway virtual appliance connects seamlessly to your local infrastructure as a file server, as a volume, or as a virtual tape library (VTL). This seamless connection makes it simple for organizations to augment existing on-premises storage investments with the high scalability, extreme durability and low cost of cloud storage.
Simple on-premises connectivity using industry-standard interfaces
On-premises caching and network optimization for low-latency transfers to and from the cloud
Connectivity with multiple AWS storage services
Seamless integration with AWS management, monitoring and identity services
Connect as a File Server
The file interface offers on-premises servers and applications access to Storage Gateway as a network file share. Data is cached for local performance. Once in Amazon S3, data is accessible as objects in S3. You can protect your data in S3 through native tools like versioning and cross-region replication.
Connect as a Local Disk
The volume interface presents the Storage Gateway to on-premises servers and applications as a local disk. Data in these volumes can be transferred into Amazon S3 cloud storage and accessed through the Storage Gateway service. Store data locally for the highest performance (with snapshot backups to the cloud), or blend latency and scale by storing frequently-accessed data locally with "cooler" data in the cloud.
Connect as a Virtual Tape Library (VTL)
The tape interface replaces backup tapes and tape automation equipment with local disk and cloud storage. Your existing backup and recovery software writes native backup jobs to virtual tapes stored on the Storage Gateway. Virtual tapes can be migrated into Amazon S3 and eventually archived into Amazon Glacier for the lowest cost. Data is accesssed through your backup application and the backup catalog maintains complete visibility for all backup jobs and tapes.
Transfer Data Into and Out of the Cloud
Storage Gateway automatically buffers on-premises data and efficiently moves it into (and out of) cloud storage services. This reduces the time and cost of moving data between your site and the AWS Cloud. Optimizations such as multipart management, delta transfers, bandwidth throttling, and bandwidth scheduling are standard for all interfaces.
Hybrid cloud storage means your data can be used on-premises and also be available in multiple AWS Cloud storage services. This brings the full AWS portfolio of security and management services to bear on your data, such as AWS KMS, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), SNS workflows, Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail. Once data is moved to AWS, you have access to additional compute, database and big data services like Amazon EC2, Amazon Redshift and Amazon EMR.
Storage Gateway caches data locally providing local disk and network performance for your most active data, with optimized data transfers occurring to cloud tiers in the background. Users and applications continue to operate using a local storage model while you take advantage of a cloud back-end.
Compression, encryption and bandwidth management are built in. Storage Gateway manages local cache offloads to the cloud based on your desired performance parameters, so you can fine-tune the balance of latency and scale for your workloads. Only data that changes is transferred, so you can optimize your network bandwidth.
No disruptions required. Download and install the virtual machine, select an interface and assign local cache capacity. The advanced networking and protocol support are all included, which means no clients to install, no new rack space, power or cooling and no network and or firewall settings to tune. And the virtual appliance can run both on-premises as well as in AWS.
Cloud storage is delivered and billed on demand, so you always have just the right amount. "Burst" workloads can expand and contract, backup and archive storage can expand without up-front media costs, and you can provsion additional storage capacity without new hardware.
Data stored through AWS Storage Gateway benefits from the durabilty and security embedded in AWS cloud storage services. Storage Management tools like versioning, cross-region replication, lifecycle management policies, and Vault Lock can lower the cost of long-term archiving, simplify audit and compliance requirements, and safeguard all of your data, not just the parts kept on-premises. All data is transferred securely and encrypted when at rest.
Customers use the AWS Storage Gateway service to build solutions for
hybrid cloud workloads, backup and restore, archiving, disaster recovery, and tiered storage.
Big data, cloud bursting, or cloud data migration, workloads require architectures that accommodate local capacity and a connection to a central cloud storage repository. Storage Gateway helps you move data between your organization and AWS to manage workloads in the cloud.
“Our immersive digital strategy is enabling us to exploit the immense potential of mRNA science to deliver transformative medicines for many diseases, helping position us as one of today’s most notable high-growth biotechs. Seamlessly integrated and orchestrated cloud-based IT systems are critical to manage and industrialize the complex planning and execution of our mRNA pipeline scale-up at every stage of drug development. AWS Storage Gateway has the promise to transform the way we move data into the cloud. The file interface lets us easily integrate data files from analytical instruments, and the transparent S3 storage lets us easily connect our cloud-based applications and leverage the powerful storage capabilities of S3. With the AWS File Gateway, we can now unleash the full power of AWS on our instrument data.”
-- Dave Johnson, PhD, Director, Informatics
Storage Gateway is a drop-in replacement for tape and tape automation, and integrates with leading industry backup software packages. Get the performance of local disk and a low-cost highly scalable cloud back-end without disrupting current systems. View the Simple Project »
"Tapes are a headache, prone with hardware failures, offsite storage costs, and constant maintenance needs. AWS Storage gateway provided the most cost-effective and simple alternative. We even got disaster recovery by using a bi-coastal data center."
-- Jesse Martinez, Infrastructure Services Manager
Storage Gateway can take snapshots of your local volumes and store those snapshots in Amazon EBS. Snapshot can be the starting point for an Amazon EBS volume, which you can then attach to an Amazon EC2 instance. In the event of a local site disaster simply set up your applications in the cloud or in a different datacenter, and restore your snapshot to keep running.
"AWS Storage Gateway is at the core of our DR and BCM processes, handling our Co-Located OLTP and OLAP off site data backups, as well as our in-office BCM. It works transparently, in a lights out way, archiving off to a separate AWS account with a simple grandfather-father-son snapshot plan in place."
-- Mat Rowlands, Solutions Architect at JustGiving UK
Expanding on-premises NAS and SAN storage arrays consumes time, capital, and rack space. Storage Gateway gives you a flexible buffer that can grow and shrink as needed, extending the life of your investments and helping your organization gracefully manage capacity fluctuations.
"AWS Storage Gateway further simplifies Amazon S3 integration, enabling VeriStor to expand our solution offerings in managed cloud services and customer migration s to cloud. The ability to securely transfer files through the gateway while maintaining native file format and metadata simplifies our operations, allowing us to easily move data from customer environments to multiple AWS services. It is another great tool that AWS has given us to add value to our customers."
-- Ferrol Macon, VP Architecture and Strategy
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