AWS Storage Gateway - Tutorials Dojo 2/6/20, 3(33 PM

AWS Storage Gateway

The service enables hybrid storage between on-premises
environments and the AWS Cloud.
It integrates on-premises enterprise applications and workflows with
Amazonʼs block and object cloud storage services through industry
standard storage protocols.
The service stores files as native S3 objects, archives virtual tapes in
Amazon Glacier, and stores EBS Snapshots generated by the Volume
Gateway with Amazon EBS.

Storage Solutions

File Gateway – supports a file interface into S3 and combines a

service and a virtual software appliance.
The software appliance, or gateway, is deployed into your on-
premises environment as a virtual machine running on
VMware ESXi or Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor.
File gateway supports
S3 Standard
S3 Standard – Infrequent Access
S3 One Zone – IA
With a file gateway, you can do the following:
You can store and retrieve files directly using the NFS
version 3 or 4.1 protocol.
You can store and retrieve files directly using the SMB
file system version, 2 and 3 protocol.
You can access your data directly in S3 from any AWS
Cloud application or service.
You can manage your S3 data using lifecycle policies,

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cross-region replication, and versioning.

File Gateway now supports Amazon S3 Object Lock, enabling
write-once-read-many (WORM) file-based systems to store
and access objects in Amazon S3.
Any modifications such as file edits, deletes or renames from
the gatewayʼs NFS or SMB clients are stored as new versions
of the object, without overwriting or deleting previous
versions.

Volume Gateway – provides cloud-backed storage volumes that

you can mount as iSCSI devices from your on-premises
application servers.
Cached volumes – you store your data in S3 and retain a
copy of frequently accessed data subsets locally. Cached
volumes can range from 1 GiB to 32 TiB in size and must be
rounded to the nearest GiB. Each gateway configured for
cached volumes can support up to 32 volumes.

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Stored volumes – if you need low-latency access to your

entire dataset, first configure your on-premises gateway to
store all your data locally. Then asynchronously back up
point-in-time snapshots of this data to S3. Stored volumes
can range from 1 GiB to 16 TiB in size and must be rounded to
the nearest GiB. Each gateway configured for stored volumes
can support up to 32 volumes.

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AWS Storage Gateway customers using the Volume Gateway

configuration for block storage can detach and attach
volumes, from and to a Volume Gateway. You can use this
feature to migrate volumes between gateways to refresh
underlying server hardware, switch between virtual machine
types, and move volumes to better host platforms or newer
Amazon EC2 instances.

Tape Gateway – archive backup data in Amazon Glacier.

Has a virtual tape library (VTL) interface to store data on
virtual tape cartridges that you create.
Deploy your gateway on an EC2 instance to provision iSCSI
storage volumes in AWS.

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The AWS Storage Gateway service integrates Tape Gateway

with Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class, allowing
you to store virtual tapes in the lowest-cost Amazon S3
storage class.
Tape Gateway also has the capability to move your virtual
tapes archived in Amazon S3 Glacier to Amazon S3 Glacier
Deep Archive storage class, enabling you to further reduce
the monthly cost to store long-term data in the cloud by up to
75%.

Storage Gateway Hosting Options

As a VM containing the Storage Gateway software, run on VMware

ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V on premises
As a VM in VMware Cloud on AWS
As a hardware appliance on premises
As an AMI in an EC2 instance
Storage Gateway stores volume, snapshot, tape, and file data in the
AWS Region in which your gateway is activated. File data is stored in
the AWS Region where your S3 bucket is located.
The local gateway appliance maintains a cache of recently written or
read data so your applications can have low-latency access to data
that is stored durably in AWS. The gateways use a read-through and
write-back cache.

File Gateway File Share

You can create an NFS or SMB file share using the AWS
Management Console or service API.
After your file gateway is activated and running, you can add
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additional file shares and grant access to S3 buckets.

You can use a file share to access objects in an S3 bucket that
belongs to a different AWS account.
The AWS Storage Gateway service added support for Access
Control Lists (ACLs) to Server Message Block (SMB) shares on the
File Gateway, helping enforce data security standards when using
the gateway for storing and accessing data in Amazon Simple
Storage Service (S3).

Security

You can use AWS KMS to encrypt data written to a virtual tape.
Storage Gateway uses Challenge-Handshake Authentication
Protocol (CHAP) to authenticate iSCSI and initiator connections.
CHAP provides protection against playback attacks by requiring
authentication to access storage volume targets.
Authentication and access control with IAM.

Compliance

Storage Gateway is HIPAA eligible.

Storage Gateway in compliance with the Payment Card Industry
Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

Pricing

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.
You are charged only for the amount of data you write to the Tape
Gateway tape, not the tape capacity.

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Limits

For File Shares

File
Description
Gateway
Maximum number of file shares per Amazon S3 bucket. There is a
1
one-to-one mapping between a file share and an S3 bucket
Maximum number of file shares per gateway 10
The maximum size of an individual file, which is the maximum size of
5 TB
an individual object in S3

For Volumes

Cached Stored
Description
Volumes Volumes
Maximum size of a volume 32 TiB 16 TiB
Maximum number of volumes per
32 32
gateway
Total size of all volumes for a gateway 1,024 TiB 512 TiB

For Tapes

Description Tape Gateway

Minimum size of a virtual tape 100 GiB
Maximum size of a virtual tape 2.5 TiB
Maximum number of virtual tapes for a VTL 1,500
Total size of all tapes in a VTL 1 PiB
Maximum number of virtual tapes in archive No limit

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Total size of all tapes in a archive No limit

Deep Dive: Hybrid Cloud Storage Architecture w/Storage Gateway:

AWS re:Invent 2018: Deep Dive: Hybrid Cloud Storage Arch. w/Storage …

Validate Your Knowledge

Question 1

A data analytics company keeps a massive volume of data which they store
in their on-premises data center. To scale their storage systems, they are
looking for cloud-backed storage volumes that they can mount using
Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) devices from their on-
premises application servers. They have an on-site data analytics
application which frequently access the latest data subsets locally while the

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older data are rarely accessed. You are required to minimize the need to
scale the on-premises storage infrastructure while still providing their web
application with low-latency access to the data.

Which type of AWS Storage Gateway service will you use to meet the above
requirements?

e. Stored Volume Gateway

f. Tape Gateway
g. Cached Volume Gateway
h. File Gateway

Question 2

A financial services company, which has a hybrid cloud architecture, has

hired you to manage their on-premises and cloud infrastructure. As part of
their disaster and recovery plan, you should set up a durable backup and
archiving system for their corporate documents stored on both on-premises
and on their cloud storage. These documents should be immediately
accessible within minutes for 6 months and be available for another 10
years to meet the data compliance.

Which of the following is the best and most cost-effective approach to

implement for this scenario?

e. Set up a new file gateway that connects to your on-premises data

center using AWS Storage Gateway. Upload the files to the file gateway
and use lifecycle policies to move the data into Glacier for archiving.
f. Set up a new tape gateway that connects to your on-premises data
center using AWS Storage Gateway. Upload the files to the tape
gateway and use lifecycle policies to move the data into Glacier for
archiving.

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g. Connect your on-premises network to your VPC by establishing a

DIrect Connect connection. Upload the data on EBS Volumes and use
lifecycle policies to automatically move the EBS snapshots to an S3
bucket, and then later to Glacier for archiving.
h. Migrate all of the files from the on-premises network using
Snowmobile. Upload the files to an S3 bucket and use lifecycle policies
to move the data into Glacier for archiving.

For more AWS practice exam questions with detailed explanations, check
this out:

Sources:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/
https://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/features/
https://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/pricing/
https://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/faqs/

***

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