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What is AWS Storage Gateway
The AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service provided by Amazon Web Services. It allows organizations to seamlessly integrate their on-premises IT infrastructure with AWS cloud storage services. The Storage Gateway acts as an interface between your on-premises applications and AWS storage services, allowing you to take advantage of the scalability, durability, and cost-effectiveness of AWS storage solutions.
What problem does it solve?
AWS Storage Gateway solves several common challenges that organizations face when integrating their on-premises storage infrastructure with cloud storage services. They are:
Hybrid Cloud Integration: Hybrid cloud refers to a computing environment that combines the use of private cloud infrastructure with public cloud services. AWS Storage Gateway enables seamless integration between on-premises environments and AWS cloud storage services, enabling a hybrid cloud infrastructure for companies
Scalability : As AWS storage services are highly scalable, clients can use these services to store petabytes of data, reducing the need to provision dedicated physical storage devices
Data Backup and Disaster Recovery: AWS Storage Gateway simplifies and accelerates data backup and disaster recovery by enabling direct backups to cloud storage.
Cost Optimization: As AWS uses a pay-as-you-go model, clients only pay for the storage they consume.
Data Archiving: AWS provides several archival storage solutions, like Glacier, that allow organisations to store less frequently accessed data at extremely low cost
What storage gateway solutions AWS provides?
AWS provides mainly three types of gateways:
File gateway
Volume gateway
Tape gateway
1. File gateway
The File Gateway provides file-based access to AWS cloud storage services. It allows you to store and retrieve files as objects in Amazon S3 buckets. File sharing protocols such as NFS and SMB make it compatible with existing on-premises applications and workflows.
Architecture of File gateway
Deployment: You install the AWS File Gateway as a virtual appliance on-premises using VMware ESXi or Microsoft Hyper-V. It acts as an interface between your on-premises infrastructure and the AWS cloud infrastructure.
Configuration: Once deployed, you configure the File Gateway using the AWS Management Console or the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI). During the configuration, you specify settings such as network connectivity, authentication, cache storage size, and cloud storage endpoints.
File Access: On-premises applications and clients access files through the File Gateway using standard network protocols such as Network File System (NFS) or Server Message Block (SMB). The File Gateway presents a file system interface that is accessible to your applications, making it appear as if the files are stored locally.
Local Cache: The File Gateway maintains a cache storage volume on-premises. Frequently accessed files are stored in the cache, allowing for low-latency access and reducing the need to retrieve data from the cloud.
Lifecycle Management: You can define lifecycle policies to automate the movement of data between storage tiers.
Monitoring and Management: AWS provides monitoring and management capabilities for File Gateway. You can monitor the gateway's performance, cache utilization, and storage metrics through the AWS Management Console or integrate with AWS CloudWatch for more advanced monitoring and alerting.
2. Volume gateway
Volume Gateway is a Volume Gateway supports two configurations: Gateway-Cached Volumes and Gateway-Stored Volumes Storage Gateway that provides block storage capabilities for integrating on-premises applications with AWS cloud storage services.
Gateway-Cached Volumes: In this type you allocate a portion of your on-premises storage as a local cache. The cached volumes are presented to your applications as iSCSI devices, and all data written to these volumes is stored in the AWS Cloud in Amazon S3. Frequently accessed data is retained in the local cache, providing low-latency access. The entire dataset is still available in the AWS Cloud for durability and scalability.
Gateway-Stored Volumes: With this configuration, the entire dataset resides on-premises, and the gateway asynchronously backs up the data to the AWS Cloud. Similar to Gateway-Cached Volumes, the volumes are presented to applications as iSCSI devices. The gateway stores point-in-time snapshots of the volumes in Amazon S3, allowing you to create EBS-like snapshots for backup and disaster recovery purposes.
Features of Volume Gateway
Snapshot Management: Volume Gateway allows you to create point-in-time snapshots of your volumes for backup and recovery. These snapshots are stored in Amazon S3, providing data protection and allowing you to restore volumes to a previous state.
Cloud Service Integration: Volume Gateway seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), enabling you to leverage the full capabilities of the AWS Cloud.
Local Performance: Gateway-Cached Volumes utilize a local cache to provide low-latency access to frequently accessed data.
Data Transfer Optimization: Volume Gateway optimizes data transfers by using techniques like data deduplication, compression, and incremental snapshots.
3. Tape Gateway
AWS Tape Gateway is a service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows you to seamlessly integrate on-premises backup and archival workflows with the scalable and cost-effective storage capabilities of Amazon S3 Glacier and Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
Architecture of File gateway
Deployment: You deploy the Tape Gateway as a virtual machine on-premises using VMware ESXi or Microsoft Hyper-V.
Virtual Tape Library (VTL): Once the Tape Gateway is deployed, it presents a virtual tape library (VTL) interface to your backup applications. This interface allows your backup software to interact with the Tape Gateway as if it were a physical tape library.
Virtual Tape Cartridges: The Tape Gateway creates virtual tape cartridges that your backup applications can use for storing data. These virtual tapes are stored in Amazon S3 Glacier or Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive, depending on the storage tier you choose.
Tape Management: You can create, delete, label, and manage virtual tape cartridges through the Tape Gateway.
Data Transfer: When your backup application writes data to a virtual tape, the Tape Gateway optimizes the transfer by buffering the data locally and then asynchronously uploading it to Amazon S3 Glacier or Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive. This helps minimize the impact on your network bandwidth.
Lifecycle Management: Tape Gateway offers lifecycle management policies to automatically move virtual tapes between storage tiers based on data access patterns and retention policies.
Retrieval and Restoration: When you need to restore data from a virtual tape, you can use your backup application to request the retrieval of the specific tape. The Tape Gateway initiates the retrieval process from Amazon S3 Glacier or Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive and makes the data available to your backup application.
Conclusion
AWS Storage Gateway is a versatile and powerful service offered by Amazon Web Services that enables seamless integration between on-premises environments and AWS cloud storage services. It provides a variety of gateway configurations, including File Gateway, Volume Gateway, and Tape Gateway, to address different storage use cases. With AWS Storage Gateway, organizations can extend their existing infrastructure to the cloud, leveraging the benefits of scalability, durability, and cost-effectiveness offered by AWS cloud storage services. Overall, AWS Storage Gateway provides a flexible and efficient solution for integrating on-premises storage with AWS cloud storage services. It helps organizations achieve a seamless and scalable storage infrastructure that combines the best of on-premises and cloud environments while optimizing costs and improving data protection.
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