Expanded availability and streamlined ordering of the AWS Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance

Migrating data to the cloud is one of the primary objectives for many organizations looking to manage rapidly increasing data growth in their IT environments. Many companies want to shrink or eliminate their on-premises infrastructure and use the cloud for their growing storage needs to achieve more scalability, flexibility, and agility, all while lowering costs and simplifying management. Managing existing infrastructure in data centers and remote offices has become a burden on IT organizations. AWS provides hybrid cloud storage services that seamlessly integrate into existing IT environments to help companies accelerate their migration to the cloud by providing on-premises access to data stored in AWS.

AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service that gives you on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage. Customers use Storage Gateway to simplify storage management and reduce costs for key hybrid cloud storage use cases. These include moving backups to the cloud, using on-premises file shares backed by cloud storage, and providing low latency access to data in AWS for on-premises applications. As a hybrid cloud service, Storage Gateway is fully managed and consists of in-cloud in addition to on-premises components, which can be deployed in several methods based on your on-premises infrastructure needs:

• As a virtual machine (VM) that can run on VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, or Linux KVM on premises
• As a hardware appliance on-premises
• As a VM in VMware Cloud on AWS
• As an AMI in Amazon EC2

In this blog post, I cover the new expanded availability and a streamlined ordering process of the AWS Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance.

Expanded availability and streamlined ordering

We first introduced the AWS Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance in September 2018. The hardware appliance streamlines procurement, deployment, and management for customers who have limited VM infrastructure and provides a faster way to consume AWS storage services in their data centers. The hardware appliance is a dedicated physical server that comes pre-loaded with the Storage Gateway software, and provides a simple out of the box deployment and setup experience. It seamlessly integrates into existing IT environments to provide local applications with consistent and predictable storage performance using standard storage protocols such as NFS, SMB, and iSCSI.

Initially, the hardware appliance launched in the US and Europe and included two configurations that provide 5 TB or 12 TB of local cache storage. The hardware appliance leverages solid state drive (SSD) technology to provide high performance, low latency access. The amount of cache storage you choose depends on the workload, the type of gateway you plan to deploy, as well as the data access patterns.

Today, we are announcing expanded international availability and a streamlined ordering process for the hardware appliance. The hardware appliance is now supported in AWS Regions in Asia Pacific, South America, and Canada, in addition to the previously supported US and Europe Regions (refer to the full list of supported Regions). We are also excited to introduce a new order fulfillment process that is directly integrated into the AWS Console. The new process provides you with a streamlined ordering experience that matches your corporate procurement workflow and reduces your deployment time. With this launch, we are providing the ability to request sales quotes and submit purchase orders directly in the AWS Storage Gateway console. This new ordering process enables AWS to ship worldwide to all destinations that are legally permitted for export by the US government. We can now meet your hybrid cloud storage needs if you want to deploy Storage Gateway in multiple global locations.

Ordering an AWS Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance

The streamlined process for ordering a hardware appliance consist of a few simple steps that include requesting a quote, confirming the quote, providing a purchase order, verifying shipping information, and finally submitting the order. Below we will walk through and review each step in detail.

Getting a quote for your hardware appliance

1. Log in to the AWS Management Console using your AWS account credentials (user must be root account owner or have ElementalAppliancesSoftwareFullAccess IAM policy).

2. Navigate to Storage Gateway under Storage in the services menu, or enter “Storage Gateway” in the search bar at the top of the screen.

3. Depending on if you are an existing Storage Gateway customer, or using the service for the first time, you will see a different screen as your next step. Let’s review both of these scenarios.

3a. If you are new to the Storage Gateway service, you see a welcome page describing the service features and benefits. Choose Get Started to proceed.

Next, you are asked to choose the type of Storage Gateway you would like to create. Make a selection between File Gateway, Volume Gateway, or Tape Gateway, and choose Next.

Then you are asked to select the host platform deployment option. There are several VM options, as well as Amazon EC2. Choose Hardware Appliance, and then select Order Appliance to start the ordering process.

You will see a pop-up message informing you that you are being directed to the AWS Elemental Appliances and Software Management console to request a sales quote. All Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance orders are processed by AWS Elemental, an AWS subsidiary that sells appliances. Click to proceed.

3b. If you are an existing Storage Gateway customer with active gateways, select the Hardware tab from the list on the left, then select Order appliance at the top of the screen.

You will see a pop-up message informing you that you are being directed to the AWS Elemental Appliances and Software Management console to request a sales quote. All Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance orders are processed by AWS Elemental, an AWS subsidiary that sells appliances. Click to proceed.

4. Once you have reached the ordering page in the AWS Elemental console, you must fill out the requested information, select the type, quantity, and then submit the quote request.

5. Once your quote has been successfully submitted, you receive a confirmation banner at the top of the page.

How to order after receiving a quote

1. You will receive a quote within two business days. The quote is sent to the email address you provided in the quote request form. The email will also include an AWS link to the Quotes and Orders page where you can review the quote details and request changes, or confirm the quote.

2. Once you have confirmed the quote, you must submit your purchase order and provide your company billing information.

3. Then specify the shipping information, and review and submit the order.

4. The order status will be updated on the Quotes and Orders page, accessible at the top of the screen.
5. On the Quotes and Orders page, you are able to review the status of all current quotes, and also view your full order history.

Conclusion

In this blog post, I discussed the new expanded international availability and introduced you to the new order fulfillment process for the AWS Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance. The hardware appliance provides a simpler and faster way to connect to the AWS Cloud, enabling you to consume cloud-backed storage for on-premises applications at all your global sites. It integrates seamlessly into your exiting IT environment, providing consistent and predictable storage performance for your local applications. The hardware appliance can be procured using a streamlined process that is directly integrated in the AWS Management Console.

Thank you for reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section.

For a step-by-step tutorial on ordering the AWS Storage Gateway Hardware Appliance, view this video: