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AWS Tape Gateway

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Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#91

Post by derefr »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #68
zetazzed wrote: post #61

I think I'll point to this as one of the examples of how AWS has been scrappy and successful. (Yes, I'll get like 10 flames on this comment.) They made this nice simple API for S3 that has become a de facto standard. They added lots of features and security controls, and I can easily imagine an architect saying "everyone should just adopt S3, it's so easy!" But huge, paying customers were used to tape libraries so th…

It’s not that weird. Tape libraries are well established and have well vetted highly reliable semantics that are deeply ingrained in many companies way of working. What’s weird is companies trying to sell some completely new way of achieving similar results and being surprised when the universe doesn’t reengineer everything as homage to their brilliance

> What’s weird is companies trying to sell some completely new way of achieving similar results and being surprised when the universe doesn’t reengineer everything as homage to their brilliance

Some abstractions can be proven to be objectively-better solutions, along some axes you care about, for your use-case, such that the existing abstraction you were relying upon is then provably sub-optimal. Switching to the more-optimal abstraction is not then an "homage to the brilliance" of the company that created the abstraction; it's a simple "pay CapEx to lower OpEx in a way that will pay itself back after N years" decision. If you can budget it, you do it.

I'm not saying that every abstraction that the IaaS vendors invent is this kind of better mouse-trap, mind you. You can usually distinguish the ones that are, because they get independently reimplemented and used by people who aren't just aiming to build "cloud-native" software, but instead just really want/need the semantics of that particular abstraction, independent of where it runs.

Object storage is a great example of an abstraction where that is the case. There are many things that do object storage now — both cloud services, and regular deployable software. In fact, even the more-traditional backup vendors, like Backblaze, now also offer object-storage APIs.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#92

Post by orwin »

zetazzed wrote: post #61

I think I'll point to this as one of the examples of how AWS has been scrappy and successful. (Yes, I'll get like 10 flames on this comment.) They made this nice simple API for S3 that has become a de facto standard. They added lots of features and security controls, and I can easily imagine an architect saying "everyone should just adopt S3, it's so easy!" But huge, paying customers were used to tape libraries so th…

Funny, i had this conversation 5 hours ago with my tech lead and my engineering manager.

We talked about how we want to change our design to copy AWS. Because it's standards, and our users (internal users) know how to use it.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#93

Post by adrianmonk »

dragonwriter wrote: post #83
capableweb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they do call it "virtual tapes", would be weird (maybe even illegal? False/misleading advertisement?) if they ended up storing it on physical tapes anyways. Edit: found in another thread here, the inventor linked the patent ( https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa... ) which confirms it's virtual tapes, not actual tapes.

> Well, they do call it "virtual tapes", would be weird (maybe even illegal? False/misleading advertisement?) if they ended up storing it on physical tapes anyways. No, just like it is not weird and definitely not illegal for the things they call “virtual machines” to end up being run on actual machines.

Also virtual memory backed by physical memory, virtual credit card numbers for a real credit card, and virtual desktops displayed on real desktops.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#94

Post by htrp »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #41
dzdt wrote: post #2

As always the problem seems to be the 'Hotel California' issue: you can check out but you can never leave. Once you have massive data in AWS there is no efficient and affordable solution to move that data back out; you are locked in forever subject to whatever future terms Amazon may chose to impose.

> Once you have massive data in AWS there is no efficient and affordable solution to move that data back out; you are locked in forever subject to whatever future terms Amazon may chose to impose. You can have your shit packed into a snowball and shipped to you.

Can you?

https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/faqs/ > Snowmobile does not support data export.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#95

Post by theamk »

capableweb wrote: post #80
chickenpotpie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> damnit, fine we'll pretend to be a tape library IIRC, they may not be pretending. It's not public knowledge what storage medium AWS glacier is built on, but many speculate it is actually tape.

Well, they do call it "virtual tapes", would be weird (maybe even illegal? False/misleading advertisement?) if they ended up storing it on physical tapes anyways. Edit: found in another thread here, the inventor linked the patent ( https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloa... ) which confirms it's virtual tapes, not actual tapes.

It would be "virtual tape" over S3 API over whatever technology AWS uses for glacier over physical tape.

They physical tapes, if any, would be many layers down.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#96

Post by amzn-throw »

posguy wrote: post #89
MisterPea wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you took a poll of AWS workers you'd find that most enjoy it. The culture leads to a vocal minority who REALLY hate it but my time there was some of the most enjoyable I've ever had. I've worked with some of the smartest people in the tech field, building products from scratch for billion dollar customers and learning every day. I've always told people that it's probably the best place you can start out of…

Amazon is a turn and burn employer at its heart. I've watched dozens of friends and acquaintances work there, rarely making it past 2 years, only to leave for less caustic organization thereafter. Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management, your time is limited by the up and out mentality of the organization as a whole. Amazon has created the perfect sc…

Sorry dude, you don't have credibility based on "Unless your willing to put up with a huge ration of shit on a regular basis, or you make it into management,"

Management at AWS arguably puts up with much more shit on a regular basis.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#97

Post by iamtedd »

capableweb wrote: post #88
dragonwriter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, because the “isolated” is false, not because the “virtual machine” abstraction is realized on a real machine.

Right. If it says "Virtual machines" and it isn't, you wouldn't call that at least misleading?

I think you're misunderstanding the scenario. What if each 'virtual' machine is actually bare metal i.e.: every EC2 instance is actually a separate computer?

There's still isolation, there's just no virtualisation abstraction.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#98

Post by adamsb6 »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #79
zetazzed wrote: post #61

I think I'll point to this as one of the examples of how AWS has been scrappy and successful. (Yes, I'll get like 10 flames on this comment.) They made this nice simple API for S3 that has become a de facto standard. They added lots of features and security controls, and I can easily imagine an architect saying "everyone should just adopt S3, it's so easy!" But huge, paying customers were used to tape libraries so th…

> damnit, fine we'll pretend to be a tape library IIRC, they may not be pretending. It's not public knowledge what storage medium AWS glacier is built on, but many speculate it is actually tape.

My knowledge is a decade old, so they very well may be using tape now, but were not originally.

At announcement time Glacier was using super dense racks of hard disks but only powering a subset of them. This led to some tape-like behaviors, like your restore request might take a long time to process because your data was likely stored on disks that weren't powered on and you'd need to wait for them to come online.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#99

Post by vbezhenar »

tablespoon wrote: post #54
sithadmin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gateway appliance is fairly compatible with legacy backup solutions, which makes it a great drop-in replacement for physical tape library systems. There are certainly better backup methods available these days (though it's hard to beat the durability and cost of LTO tape for long-term archival), but I've seen AWS's virtual tape used as a good stopgap while other backup/recovery solutions are still a ways out an o…

> though it's hard to beat the durability and cost of LTO tape for long-term archival I'm not entirely comfortable with the trend towards ever more esoteric and seemingly "all or nothing" technologies. Tape (and other physical things) may have their downsides, but I think there's something to be said for something that could (theoretically) be forgotten in a closet and read 50 years later. Likewise, AM radio may not…

It's very unlikely that you'll be able to read modern tape from closet in 50 years. Tape requires very precise temperature and humidity for storage. Otherwise all bets are off.

Re: AWS Tape Gateway

#100

Post by vbezhenar »

htrp wrote: post #94
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you have massive data in AWS there is no efficient and affordable solution to move that data back out; you are locked in forever subject to whatever future terms Amazon may chose to impose. You can have your shit packed into a snowball and shipped to you.

Can you? https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/faqs/ > Snowmobile does not support data export.

It's confusing.

https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/

Quickly retrieve data from the cloud whenever you need it.

What does it mean?

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