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Amazon Wants To Replace Tape With Slow But Cheap Off-Site "Glacier" Storage

Posted by timothy on from the steady-as-she-goes dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes with a piece at SlashCloud that says "Amazon is expanding its reach into the low-cost, high-durability archival storage market with the newly announced Glacier. While Glacier allows companies to transfer their data-archiving duties to the cloud — a potentially money-saving boon for many a budget-squeezed organization—the service comes with some caveats. Its cost structure and slow speed of data retrieval make it best suited for data that needs to be accessed infrequently, such as years-old legal records and research data. If that sounds quite a bit like Amazon Simple Storage Service, otherwise known as Amazon S3, you'd be correct. Both Amazon S3 and Glacier have been designed to store and retrieve data from anywhere with a Web connection. However, Amazon S3 — 'designed to make Web-scale computing easier for developers,' according to the company — is meant for rapid data retrieval; contrast that with a Glacier data-retrieval request (referred to as a 'job'), where it can take between 3 and 5 hours before it's ready for downloading."

8 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. And simple by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Walkabout the glacier
    With stubble on the face. You're
    Returning to a place sure
    To need a smoother face, pure.
    Burma Shave

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  2. "Job" control? by mjackson14609 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do you have to submit a properly-formatted JCL card to get your data back?

    --
    I decided that behaving ethically was the most nihilistic thing I could do. - Paul Pavel
  3. Everybody in the cloud! by marcosdumay · · Score: 3, Funny

    Where should I put sensitive documents that must be safely stored for a long time? In the cloud, of course!

    --
    Rethinking email
  4. So ... by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... does this mean that deleting data from Amazon Simple Storage is called an ASS-wipe?

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:So ... by tgd · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... does this mean that deleting data from Amazon Simple Storage is called an ASS-wipe?

      Admit it, you've been waiting years to use that joke, haven't you?

  5. Glacier storage? by rossdee · · Score: 3, Funny

    Apparently someone at Amazon didn't watch the long term weather forecast - climate change means all the glaciers will be gone in a few decades.

  6. "Glacier" might not be the best term by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Considering that glaciers are melting at an alarming rate around the world and losing their 'data' I think 'glacier' might not be the best term for this product. It doesn't really inspire confidence.

  7. damn whippersnappers by Medievalist · · Score: 4, Funny

    No one capable of participating in an online forum is old enough to actually remember/witness Burma Shave ads.

    Wrong. Now GTFO my lawn.