Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, has introduced a new pay-as-you-go storage solution specifically designed for data that is infrequently accessed but still needs to be retained.
Amazon Glacier is now available in five regions, including Ireland. The cloud storage facility is intended for use as a data archive and back-up service where clients only pay for what they use.
A monthly fee is based on the amount of data stored and transferred, which can be as low as US$0.01 per gigabyte per month, depending on usage.
Huge data archives are costly for companies to maintain in-house and cloud services are a tempting low-cost solution. As well as cutting out operational costs such as power, staffing and maintenance, cloud storage services like Amazon Glacier can be scaled as need dictates.
The range of companies that benefit from such services goes from laboratories producing reams of raw genomic sequence data to media houses who would rather digitise their archives than rely on hard copy. Amazon Glacier could also be used for financial or healthcare records, data that must be retained for regulatory compliance, or as a long-term database back-up.
