Tape media management, media costs, 3rd party offsite contracts, and the sheer volume of data growth makes tape backup challenging in any organization. The AWS Storage Gateway service offers a Tape Gateway configuration that gives you an alternative to physical backup tapes that fits seamlessly into your existing backup process. Now you have the local performance of disk, a low-cost highly scalable cloud back-end, and minimal disruption to existing systems.
What you'll accomplish:
Provision a virtual host with local storage for your Tape Gateway.
Create virtual tapes in your gateway's Virtual Tape Library. Virtual tapes are stored in Amazon S3 and available to your backup software through the VTL interface. This replaces tape and tape automation, so you can start using the cloud as a backup target with minimal disruption to existing systems and processes.
Backup to these virtual tapes using your existing backup software. The Tape Gateway enables backups to the cloud and preserves your existing software licensing investment, backup jobs, and catalogs.
Reduce your costs with long-term archival storage using Amazon S3 Glacier and Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive. You can use your backup software to move a virtual tape into Amazon S3 Glacier or Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive for further cost reductions.
What you'll need before starting:
An AWS account: You will need an AWS account to download an AWS Storage Gateway and to create a VTL and virtual tapes. Sign up for AWS.
Hypervisor and host: The simplest approach is to run Storage Gateway on-premises as a virtual machine (VM). For more information, see the list of supported Hypervisors and Host requirements.
Existing 3rd party backup software to manage the backup jobs and catalog. For more information, see the list of Compatible Third-Party Backup Software.
Skill level: Experience with storage and backup technologies, networking, virtualization, backup tools, and tape solutions is recommended, but not required.
AWS experience: No working knowledge of Amazon S3, Amazon S3 Glacier, or Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive is required.
Estimating your costs:
You are charged based on the type and amount of storage you use, the requests you make, and the amount of data transferred out of AWS. There are monthly data storage fees for tapes stored in S3 and for tapes archived in Glacier.
To see a breakdown of the services used and their associated costs, see Services Used and Costs.
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