File Gateway

Store and access objects in Amazon S3 from NFS or SMB file-based applications with local caching

Nearly all enterprises, regardless of industry, have to store files, whether they are backups, media content, or files generated by specialized industry applications. Managing and scaling on-premises infrastructure to provide online storage and distribution of such backup or content files is often burdensome and costly, requiring expensive hardware refreshes, data center expansion, and software licensing. These large file data repositories can be siloed in specialized file servers, NAS units, or backup systems, limiting access for big data analytics or media processing applications.

File Gateway provides a seamless way to connect to the cloud in order to store application data files and backup images as durable objects in Amazon S3 cloud storage. File Gateway offers SMB or NFS-based access to data in Amazon S3 with local caching. It can be used for on-premises applications, and for Amazon EC2-based applications that need file protocol access to S3 object storage.

File Gateway Overview - On-Premises Backup to the AWS Cloud (7:08)

How it works

Benefits

Provides on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage on-demand

Extends the AWS Cloud to your data center

Requires no changes to existing applications

Reduces physical infrastructure, cost, and complexity

Gets your data into Amazon S3 for use with other AWS services

Utilizes standard storage protocols with NFS & SMB

Use Cases

On-Premises Backups to the Cloud

Move database and file backups into the cloud and free up on-premises storage capacity. Many organizations start their cloud journey by moving secondary and tertiary data, such as backups, to the cloud. File Gateway’s SMB and NFS interfaces provide an ideal way for you to simplify your backup jobs from existing on-premises backup systems to the cloud. Backup applications, native database tools, or scripts that can write to SMB or NFS can all write to the File Gateway. With an adequately sized local cache, recent backups can be used for fast on-site recoveries, while long-term retention needs are addressed by tiering backups to low-cost S3 storage classes, like S3 Standard, S3 Infrequent Access, S3 Glacier, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive.

On-Premises File Shares Backed by Cloud Storage

On-premises applications that need easy to use, cost-effective, scalable file storage often run out of capacity on their on-premises storage arrays, leaving you with expensive hardware replacement cycles every three-to-five years. You can offload your historical and archival data from expensive on-premises high performance NAS systems to low cost archival storage in the cloud with S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive. Many on-premises file workloads do not need expensive storage arrays. File Gateway gives you on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage for files by providing an S3-backed file share that works with existing Windows or Linux applications using SMB or NFS.

Low Latency Access for On-Premises Applications to In-Cloud Data

Access your files in cloud storage quickly from distributed locations and scale capacity as needed. Process data in the cloud and automatically refresh gateway caches for up-to-date results. Your data is stored cost-effectively and centrally in the cloud. File Gateway gives customers on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage for this data as files are stored as durable objects in Amazon S3. With File Gateway, customers have on-demand, low-latency access to data stored in AWS for application workflows that can span the globe.

Customers

Moderna Therapeutics is pioneering a new class of drugs with the vast potential to treat many diseases across a range of drug modalities and therapeutic areas. AWS Storage Gateway has transformed the way Moderna moves data into the cloud. File Gateway enables Moderna to easily integrate data files from analytical instruments, and transparent Amazon S3 storage lets Moderna easily connect their cloud-based applications to leverage the powerful storage capabilities of S3. With File Gateway, Moderna can unleash the full power of AWS on their instrument data.

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Kellogg Company experienced a 90% reduction in costs in software and infrastructure by using File Gateway for their backups. There was a substantial cost avoidance for Kellogg Company since they did not need to pay any upfront costs. They also were able to reduce their resources by 25% enabling them to downsize some of their instances.

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King is a leading interactive entertainment company whose franchises include the famed Candy Crush mobile game. Storage Gateway helps King store backups offsite, create online archives of big files, and easily expand their file servers. With File Gateway, King has their most used files local, and all of the files are stored safely in AWS. King uses Storage Gateway whenever they need a quick way to have big storage available.

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Celgene faced a big challenge integrating their wet labs with the computational aspect of their research. Celgene uses Storage Gateway and DataSync to synchronize their on-premise wet labs with AWS Storage. By having Celgene's scientists immediately be able to save their files directly to the cloud, they can go on with the next experiment without having to wait for the transfer times, and they never run out of space.

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STEMCELL has been an AWS customer for many years, including using AWS Storage Gateway since 2014, and has migrated 85% of their IT operations to the cloud. STEMCELL uses File Gateway for high performance, scalable, low latency local access to data to analyze and capture images. File Gateway required no changes to business workflows, required zero retraining of IT staff, and allowed STEMCELL to reduce CapEx.

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Hear from more AWS Storage Gateway customers »

Key File Gateway resources

Tech Talk: Migrating File Data to AWS - Demo and Technical Guidance (39:43)

re:Invent session: Build Hybrid Storage Architectures with AWS Storage Gateway (53:22)

Easily Transfer Data Into Amazon S3 From Your Existing Applications with File Gateway (5:25)

File-Gateway-for-Hybrid-Cloud-Storage-Architectures-White-Paper

White Paper: File Gateway for Hybrid Cloud Storage Architectures »

Documentation: File Gateway »

File Gateway blog posts

Learn more about AWS Storage Gateway pricing

Visit the pricing page

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