AWS Import/Export API

We added full programmability to AWS Import/Export in order to make it even easier for you to move large amounts of data in to or out of Amazon S3.

The new API is very straightforward. You use CreateJob to create a new Import or Export job, and ListJobs to retrieve a list of your jobs. You call GetStatus to find out where the job is in the processing pipeline, UpdateJob to make changes to a job, or CancelJob to cancel it entirely (read the API Reference to learn more).

Our customers are using AWS Import/Export in a number of interesting ways. Here’s a sampling:

Sonian has developed a workflow to make it easy to bring in customer data (Exchange server databases, Outlook PST files, Lotus Notes databases, and so forth) in to the cloud.

The customer copies their database to physical media and Sonian manages the details of the import process. Within days of receipt the information contained in the files is archived in Sonian. The average Sonian job size is now 750 GB and the largest Sonian job to date was 4 TB.

Classical Archives imported 14.3 TB of data using AWS Import/Export.

After bringing the data in as encrypted 4 GB chunks, they copied it to a set of Elastic Block Store volumes for direct access. They noted that “The use of large files allowed us to improve transfer speed from the drives, and to save time any money.”

Complete Genomics automatically transmits completed customer sequencing and analysis data sets via a fast, dedicated, secure network connection from Complete Genomics offsite storage location to the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).

By using Amazon S3, Complete Genomics has access to a highly scalable and reliable data storage infrastructure that permits secure storage and retrieval of any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. AWS then transfers the anonymized Complete Genomics customer data set onto a hard disk drive, which it ships directly to the customer using Amazons distribution and logistics network.

The following third-party tools* are already using the AWS Import/Export API:

CloudBerry S3 Explorer now has the ability to create, list and manage Import/Export jobs. Here are some screen shots: