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0 pointskondro14y ago0 comments

Not since the last snapshot. It syncs as close to real-time as possible without the latency and network speeds affecting the performance locally.

This solution isn't designed to replace fault-tolerance on local hardware. It is for close to realtime offsite replication and backup.

Data in S3 is stored in at least three geographically separate locations and snapshots are very fast and very efficient on storage space.

The final major advantage you get through a solution such as this is that if you do have your primary site go down (floods, tornados, etc), you can bring up all your existing images via EC2 without having to have a bunch of redundant hardware sitting around waiting for disaster to strike.

And what do you pay for this? $125/month plus a per GB storage cost CHEAPER than enterprise storage generally is.

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sciurus14y ago

Let's say I need 50TB of usable space. I can purchase an Equallogic PS6100E (a mid-level "enterprise" storage device) with twenty-four 3TB drives and 5 years of support for $85,000. Rack space and power isn't free, so let's say the total cost of equipment and facilities over 5 years is $100,000.

In contrast, storing 50TB for 5 years on S3's reduced redundancy storage would cost $250,000. If I ever need to transfer any of that data back to my data center, there'll be a hefty bill for that as well.

kondroOP14y ago

Except to get the same redundancy as this AWS product you would need a replica of this storage device in at least 2 other datacentres, you would have to ensure you have enough spare capacity lying around for any snapshots you take and have to buy or build software that manages this 3-way data synchronisation between sites.

Also, you seem to be forgetting that you still need local storage for your images anyway. This is a hands-off backup and disaster recovery product.

For full disclosure, the Storage Gateway's pricing isn't the same as S3's at the moment. They only have one storage tier and it is $0.14 per GB, no discounts. Therefore, 50TB of storage over 5 years is $420k.

Having said that, what would it cost to:

* Not only have your primary but 2 x secondary PS61000E's.

* 2 extra datacentres with connectivity to themselvse and your primary site.

* Software to manage asynchronous streaming of data from your primary to 2 x secondaries.

* Software to take consistent backups of these images and store in at all three locations.

* Software to ensure that your secondary sites contain only encrypted data.

* Cold-spare hardware at a secondary site capable of running all your images.

evandena14y ago

With Amazon you could facilitate a DR onto their other platforms. With your Equallogic example you would need to mirror that data to another device with recovery targets in another location.

nknight14y ago

At the scales he's talking about, 10gbps uplinks are easily available. That said, the killer isn't the equipment costs, it's the people.

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