AWS Storage Gateway | General Flashcards
What is the AWS Storage Gateway service?
General
AWS Storage Gateway | Storage
The AWS Storage Gateway service enables hybrid storage between on-premises environments and the AWS Cloud. It seamlessly integrates on-premises enterprise applications and workflows with Amazon’s block and object cloud storage services through industry standard storage protocols. It provides low-latency performance by caching frequently accessed data on premises, while storing data securely and durably in Amazon cloud storage services. It provides an optimized data transfer mechanism and bandwidth management, which tolerates unreliable networks and minimizes the amount of data being transferred. It brings the security, manageability, durability, and scalability of AWS to existing enterprise environments through native integration with AWS encryption, identity management, monitoring, and storage services. Typical use cases include backup and archiving, disaster recovery, moving data to S3 for in-cloud workloads, and tiered storage.
AWS Storage Gateway supports three storage interfaces: file, volume, and tape. Each gateway you have can provide one type of interface.
The file gateway enables you to store and retrieve objects in Amazon S3 using file protocols, such as NFS. Objects written through file gateway can be directly accessed in S3.
The volume gateway provides block storage to your applications using the iSCSI protocol. Data on the volumes is stored in Amazon S3. To access your iSCSI volumes in AWS, you can take EBS snapshots which can be used to create EBS volumes.
The tape gateway provides your backup application with an iSCSI virtual tape library (VTL) interface, consisting of a virtual media changer, virtual tape drives, and virtual tapes. Virtual tape data is stored in Amazon S3 or can be archived to Amazon Glacier.
How do I use the AWS Storage Gateway service?
General
AWS Storage Gateway | Storage
You can have two touchpoints to use the service: the AWS Management Console and a gateway virtual machine (VM).
You use the AWS Management Console to download the gateway, configure storage, and manage and monitor the service. The gateway connects your applications to AWS storage by providing standard storage interfaces. It provides transparent caching, efficient data transfer, and integration with AWS monitoring and security services.
To get started, sign up for the AWS Storage Gateway by choosing “Sign Up Now” on the AWS Storage Gateway detail page. To sign-up, you must have an Amazon Web Services account; if you don’t already have one, you are prompted to create one when you begin the AWS Storage Gateway sign-up process.
After you sign up, you visit the AWS Storage Gateway Management Console to download a gateway with a file, volume, or tape interface. Once you’ve downloaded and installed your gateway, you associate it with your AWS Account through our activation process. After activation, you configure the gateway to connect to the appropriate storage type. For file gateway, you configure file shares that are mapped to selected S3 buckets, using IAM roles. For volume gateway, you create and mount volumes as iSCSI devices. For tape gateway, you connect your backup application to create and manage tapes. Once configured, you start using the gateway to write and read data to and from AWS storage. You can monitor the status of your data transfer and your storage interfaces through the AWS Management Console. Additionally, you can use the API or SDK to programmatically manage your application’s interaction with the gateway.
What is file gateway?
General
AWS Storage Gateway | Storage
File gateway provides a virtual file server, which enables you to store and retrieve Amazon S3 objects through standard file storage protocols. File gateway allows your existing file-based applications or devices to use secure and durable cloud storage without needing to be modified. With file gateway, your configured S3 buckets will be available as Network File System (NFS) mount points. Your applications read and write files and directories over NFS, interfacing to the gateway as a file server. In turn, the gateway translates these file operations into object requests on your S3 buckets. Your most recently used data is cached on the gateway for low-latency access, and data transfer between your data center and AWS is fully managed and optimized by the gateway. Once in S3, you can access the objects directly or manage them using features such as S3 Lifecycle Policies, object versioning, and cross-region replication. You can run file gateway on-premises or in EC2.
What is volume gateway?
General
AWS Storage Gateway | Storage
Volume gateway provides an iSCSI target, which enables you to create volumes and mount them as iSCSI devices from your on-premises or EC2 application servers. The volume gateway runs in either a cached or stored mode.
In the cached mode, your primary data is written to S3, while retaining your frequently accessed data locally in a cache for low-latency access.
In the stored mode, your primary data is stored locally and your entire dataset is available for low-latency access while asynchronously backed up to AWS.
In either mode, you can take point-in-time snapshots of your volumes and store them in Amazon S3, enabling you to make space-efficient versioned copies of your volumes for data protection and various data reuse needs.
What is tape gateway?
General
AWS Storage Gateway | Storage
Tape gateway presents your backup application with a virtual tape library (VTL) interface, consisting of a media changer and tape drives. You can create virtual tapes in your virtual tape library using the AWS Management Console. Your backup application can read data from or write data to virtual tapes by mounting them to virtual tape drives using the virtual media changer. Virtual tapes are discovered by your backup application using its standard media inventory procedure. Virtual tapes are available for immediate access and are backed by Amazon S3. You can also archive tapes. Archived tapes are stored in Amazon Glacier.
What benefits does AWS Storage Gateway provide?
General
AWS Storage Gateway | Storage
AWS Storage Gateway provides a set of features that enable you to effectively leverage AWS storage within your existing applications and workflows. It provides a standard set of protocols such as iSCSI and NFS, which allow you to use your existing applications without any changes. Through its local cache, the gateway provides low-latency access to frequently used data. The gateway optimizes data transfer to AWS storage, such as optimization of transfer through intelligent buffering, upload management to address network variations, and bandwidth management. The gateway provides you an effective mechanism to store data in AWS across the range of storage services most suitable for your use cases. The gateway is easy to deploy and leverages your existing virtual infrastructure investments and integrates with native hypervisors. The gateway is stateless, allowing you to easily create and manage new instances of your gateway as your storage needs evolve. Finally, it integrates natively into AWS management services such as Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, AWS KMS, and IAM.
What sort of encryption does AWS Storage Gateway use to protect my data?
General
AWS Storage Gateway | Storage
All data transferred between any type of gateway appliance and AWS storage is encrypted using SSL. By default, all data stored by AWS Storage Gateway in S3 is encrypted server-side with Amazon S3-Managed Encryption Keys (SSE-S3). Also, when using the file gateway, you can optionally configure each file share to have your objects encrypted with AWS KMS-Managed Keys using SSE-KMS.
