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AWS lesson

AWS S3 Storage Gateway

​AWS Storage Gateway is a hybrid cloud storage service that enables on-premises applications to seamlessly use AWS cloud storage, including Amazon S3. It acts as a bridge between your on-premises environment and AWS, allowing you to store data securely in the cloud while maintaining local access and performance.


Types of Storage Gateway

  1. File Gateway:
    Presents a file interface (NFS or SMB) to your on-premises applications. Files are stored as objects in Amazon S3, enabling cloud-backed file shares.

  2. Volume Gateway:
    Provides block storage volumes to your on-premises applications. Data is asynchronously backed up to AWS as EBS snapshots or stored in S3.

  3. Tape Gateway:
    Emulates a physical tape library, allowing you to use your existing backup software to store data in virtual tapes in S3 or S3 Glacier.

Example Scenario

Suppose your company has an on-premises file server used by employees to store and share documents. You want to leverage Amazon S3 for scalable, durable storage, but your applications require a standard file system interface.

Solution: Use AWS Storage Gateway (File Gateway)

How it works:

  1. Deploy the File Gateway as a virtual machine (VM) on-premises or as a hardware appliance.
  2. Configure file shares using NFS or SMB protocols.
  3. Map the file share to a specific S3 bucket, for example, company-documents.
  4. Users save files to the file share as usual. The gateway stores frequently accessed data locally for low-latency access and asynchronously uploads files to S3 for durability and scalability.
  5. Files in S3 can be accessed directly via the AWS Management Console, S3 API, or by other AWS services.


Example: File Gateway in Action

  • You deploy a File Gateway VM in your data center.
  • You create an NFS file share mapped to the S3 bucket company-documents.
  • Employees save files to the NFS share (e.g., \\fileserver\shared).
  • The gateway caches active files locally and uploads all files to S3.
  • If a file is deleted locally, it can still be restored from S3.


Benefits

  • Seamless Integration: Applications use standard file protocols without modification.
  • Scalability and Durability: Data is stored in Amazon S3, benefiting from its scalability and 11 nines of durability.
  • Cost Optimization: Frequently accessed data is cached locally, while infrequently accessed data is stored in S3.
  • Backup and Recovery: Data in S3 can be protected with versioning, lifecycle policies, and cross-region replication.