Welcome to data migration! You know how to use AWS storage and databases, but how do you get your existing data into AWS? Moving terabytes or even petabytes of data from on-premises data centers to the cloud presents unique challenges.
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What is the biggest challenge you'd expect when trying to upload 50TB of data over your home internet?
For large-scale data transfers, the internet is often too slow, too expensive, or not secure enough. Uploading 100TB over a typical 1 Gbps connection would take more than 10 days of continuous transfer, assuming no interruptions.
This makes online migration impractical for very large datasets.
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Any ideas on what AWS does to handle these cases?
For these situations, AWS offers the AWS Snow Family. These are physical devices that AWS ships to you. You load your data onto the device, and then ship it back to AWS, where they upload it directly into your S3 buckets.
This "sneakernet" approach bypasses the internet entirely.
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When might shipping a hard drive be faster than uploading the data?
The Snow Family comes in different sizes. An AWS Snowball Edge is a rugged device that can hold up to 80TB of data. For exabyte-scale migrations, AWS even has AWS Snowmobile, a 45-foot long shipping container pulled by a semi-trailer truck.
This ensures there's a physical transfer option for any amount of data.
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Makes sense?
For migrating active databases with minimal downtime, you would use the AWS Database Migration Service (DMS). DMS helps you migrate databases to AWS easily and securely while the source database remains fully operational.
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Why is minimizing downtime so crucial when migrating a production database?
