アマゾンがエッジ展開のためのスノーラインを溶かす
カレンダーには6月と書いてあるかもしれませんが、アマゾンウェブサービス（AWS）は、エッジやリソースの限られた場所をターゲットにしたSnowconeストレージボックスの発売により、さらに雪を積んでいます。このデバイスは、AWSのより幅広いSnowballファミリーのストレージおよびデータ転送デバイスと連携します。The calendar might say June, but Amazon Web Services (AWS) is piling on more snow with the launch of its Snowcone storage box targeted at edge and resource-constrained locations. The device ties into AWS’ broader Snowball family of storage and data transfer devices.
The ruggedized device has a small footprint (9 inches by 6 inches by 3 inches) that AWS describes as being able to fit “in a standard mailbox of a small backpack,” and it weighs 4.5 pounds. It encases 2 CPUs, 4-gigabytes of memory, 8-terabytes of storage, and USB-C power or an optional battery. It also packs an Ethernet port and WiFi.
That package allows the device to collect and process data locally, and move it into the AWS cloud either offline by shipping the device to AWS or using AWS DataSync. It also supports AWS’ IoT Greengrass platform and can run AWS’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances.
Like the other Snowball products, Snowcone encrypts data using 256-bit keys that are managed by the customer using AWS’ Key Management Service. It also includes anti-tamper and tamper-evident features to monitor security during transit or in its deployed environment.
Bill Vass, VP of storage, automation, and management services at AWS, said in a statement that the cloud giant has thousands of customers using its Snowball devices.
Initial availability includes AWS’ US East (Northern Virginia) and US West (Oregon) regions, with broader expansion planned.
Snowcone is now the smallest of AWS’ Snow family of physical devices that are designed to run outside the data center.
AWS launched its Snow products in 2015, as basically the physical representation of the company’s cloud offering. The first product was Snowball, a 50-pound ruggedized box that held 50 terabytes of data.
That was followed by Snowmobile data truck that rang in at 45-feet long, nearly 10-feet tall, and 8-feet wide. The climate-controlled container stores up to 100 petabytes of data and is obviously made for environments where performance takes priority over size constraints.
Then came Snowball Edge, which was a 100-terabytes data transfer device that, unlike the earlier storage-only Snowball, included on-board compute. This made it ideal for storage and compute in edge locations, and easier to migrate massive amounts of data between the edge and the cloud. AWS has since updated the Edge product with more powerful compute and storage options.
AWS earlier this year introduced a new graphical user interface for the Snow products called AWS OpsHub that IT professionals can use to unlock and configure devices, deploy applications, monitor device metrics, and automate operations. Developers can also write scripts for Snow devices in Python or PowerShell directly in the AWS OpsHub.
AWS rival Microsoft rolled out a similar product last year with its Azure Data Box Edge. It’s a cloud-managaed, 1U rack-mountable device designed for edge locations. It comes with local compute, a built-in storage gateway (and the ability to automatically transfer data between the local device and Azure cloud storage), and an Intel Arria field programmable gate array (FPGA) built for machine learning.
