Amazon Web Services just launched the beta version of Import/Export, a feature that lets users move large amounts of data into and out of AWS using portable storage devices for transport. AWS will transfer large data sets into Amazon S3 faster using Amazon’s high-speed internal network and bypassing the Internet. Amazon says that AWS Import/Export can often be faster than the internet for large data sets and more cost effective than upgrading a user’s connectivity.
The Import/Export feature, which costs $80.00 per storage device and $2.49 per data-loading-hour (Partial data-loading-hours are billed as full hours), can be used for data migration, offsite backup, direct data interchange (you can have data sent from outside sources directly to AWS to be imported into S3 buckets), and disaster recovery, which can be used when a business needs a large backup stored in Amazon S3 and can use AWS Import/Export to transfer the data to a portable storage device and deliver it to your site.
Amazon’s CTO, Werner Vogels, writes in a blog post that enterprises are steadily processing more and more data and Amazon’s new feature helps businesses to handle the challenges of these large data sets. Vogels also included a chart to show the time it takes to move large data sets over the internet:
AWS also recently unveiled a suite of new and useful features for Amazon EC2 which will help users monitor cloud capacity, scale on demand, and spread incoming traffic across multiple web servers.