The amount of data to store and manage is increasing and costing you while it grows every day. A lot of this data isn’t even accessed often; however, it is necessary to store it securely for future reference and compliance reasons
Moving this infrequent access data to a long-term storage repository can help save storage costs but finding a convenient and reliable way to do so is a challenge. There are two routes available to you: one is to use the latest backup and disaster recovery services and the other is using traditional infrastructure.
If you choose traditional infrastructure, then your journey is somewhat similar to this. First, you have to calculate the required storage capacity. Getting it wrong means you either have insufficient storage space, or you have too much storage space and a lot of resources sitting idly. Secondly, you have to purchase lots of expensive hardware including racks of servers and tape storage drives. Then you have to spend on ongoing operational costs, power facilities, staffing, maintenance and management.
What is Amazon Glacier?
Amazon Glacier is a cost efficient, secure and durable storage service intended to address your data archiving and backup needs. It’s specifically made to reduce costs and is optimized for cold/infrequently accessed data. Glacier provides you with a reliable storage which you can choose to store data regardless of the size with affordable and economical pricing. The best thing is that there are no limitations on the size of data you can restore. And you only pay for the storage space you use, not for a fixed storage space that you purchase. This policy makes it a really good cloud backup service as it eliminates the guessing part about future storage space requirements.
Another appealing feature of Amazon is that you don’t have to worry about losing your stored data. Glacier secures your data by redundantly storing it on multiple devices across multiple facilities. This means that even if a natural disaster happens and affects a single facility, the second facility continues to provide you uninterrupted backup. Amazon Glacier also ensures that your data is always available and recoverable through rigorous systematic data integrity checks. These checks also make sure that your data is safe against unintended access.
Amazon Glacier assists data management by providing you with fine-grained access to your data using Amazon web services (AWS) identity and Accesss management policies. Your data is secured using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) during transit and at rest it is secured using AES 256 bit advanced encryption.
Backup and archiving to Amazon Glacier
The term backup is commonly associated with Amazon Glacier but that’s not entirely correct. Backup is storing data that you wish to secure and access every now and then. Archiving on the other hand is securing data that you don’t have to access a lot. Enterprises mostly do it for record maintenance and/or to observe company policies and/or compliance with industry regulatory authorities and policies. Therefore, the term archiving is more applicable to Glacier.
Amazon glacier is a broader concept that is relevant for the domestic user and enterprises. From a domestic user’s perspective, you can only have so much space for data such as family pictures and videos, favorite movies and others. This is the data that you do not need to access every day; however, it is data that you do not wish to lose either. So you should simply archive this data.
Employing NAS (Network Attached Storage) can solve the problem for domestic users; however, the same isn’t applicable to enterprise data. Archiving to AWS Glacier means having a reliable storage that scales up when you need it, without any infrastructure or hardware costs, with little costs based used storage space and how long you archive the data.
Enterprises have large scale variable requirements, therefore relevant backup and disaster recovery solutions can be equally challenging. AWS glacier is capable of addressing every single challenge. For a global enterprise, it relies on data archived from various different branches but accessible by all of them. This can be done using a combination of features of AWS Glacier. Similarly, core data archiving is even more demanding due to the large chunks of data that need to be moved. As it is archived, it doesn’t need frequent access but moving it can also be daunting; specifically if we compare the process to traditional methods of tape storage.
This process isn’t as difficult for AWS and its partners. StoneFly, a partner of Amazon, enables users to utilize the StoneFly cloud connect to Amazon AWS to remove the limitations of file sizes. So you can choose to archive files that are greater than 1 TB or 4 TB or even more. You get to choose your file size storage and you are charged accordingly.
Considerations: Before you Backup to Amazon Glacier
Amazon Glacier offers amazing prices for archiving data. Therefore before you move certain data to Glacier, you need to make sure that the data doesn’t need to be accessed a lot. Otherwise, the entire cost efficient nature of Glacier is in vain. Regardless of whether you’re an enterprise or a domestic user considering the move, data analysis is extremely important.
StoneFly Cloud connect for backup and replication to Amazon Glacier
StoneFly cloud connect is the cloud gateway that enables you to move your data to Glacier. StoneFly provides a single GUI to do so and using it is very simple. If you’re an enterprise with on-premise infrastructure, StoneFly’s accommodating compatibility enables you to use it with your existing hardware. You don’t have to bear additional expenses or purchase additional licenses. StoneFly’s price structure is also customer oriented, making it the best client to pair up with AWS because both emphasize on cost efficiency and user convenience. Not just that, StoneFly also provides replication services, securing your data on multiple devices and locations to ensure its security and recoverability.
StoneFly is also compatible with various backup server types and supports different mainstream backup applications; making it the most economical choice to make the move to cloud backup efficiently and cost effectively.
Summary
Data is piling up on a daily basis and there’s ever growing need to store it on a reliable storage medium. For data that doesn’t need frequent access Amazon Glacier is the best choice. Glacier doesn’t charge a lot for data archival. It provides several user oriented features and is for every kind of user whether domestic user or an enterprise. StoneFly cloud connect enables users to easily gain access to Glacier and also provides additional features that users can benefit from.
StoneFly also provides backup and disaster recovery services and solutions that are utilized by customers around the globe. You can contact StoneFly to get information or advice about your data and the appropriate backup appliance and/or service for it.
