Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched physical locations where customers can plug in and upload their data to the cloud.
Dubbed AWS Data Transfer Terminal, the offering is a secure location where customers can reserve a slot to upload data to any AWS public endpoint, such as Amazon S3 storage or Amazon Elastic File System.
The first two Data Transfer Terminals are located in Los Angeles and New York, although AWS intends to add more locations globally.
Each location has a patch panel, fiber optic cable - at least two 100G cables - and a PC for monitoring data transfer jobs. Channy Yun, a principal developer advocate at AWS, noted in a blog post: "Don’t be surprised if there are no AWS signs in the building or room. This is for security reasons to keep your work location as secret as possible.”
The offering enables customers to upload data "rapidly and securely" and enables customers to reduce the time of ingesting data with high throughput of connectivity in the location.
According to AWS, the offering is ideal for uploading large datasets for training machine learning models, audio and video files for media processing, or mapping or imagery data for geographic analysis.
Customers can also bring their AWS Snowball devices to the location for upload. AWS Snowball is a method of moving offline or remote data to the cloud, done manually by AWS shipping the device to the customer, who then puts data on the device and ships it back to AWS for upload. The Data Transfer Terminals remove the need for shipping and also enable users to keep Snowball for continued use.
AWS Data Transfer Terminal is charged for on-demand use per hour, and there is no per GB charge for data transfer if uploading to regions in the same continent of your location. Per port charges are $300 for US to US uploads, and $500 for US to EU transfers.
The announcement is the latest in a series of moves this year to update AWS' offerings around how users bring data onto its cloud.
This year has seen Amazon discontinue its Snowmobile service, which offered offline data transfer via an 18-wheeler truck, and slim down the Snow Edge compute devices available to customers.
As well as killing off the Snowcone appliance line entirely, the company reduced the range of available Snowball devices to two; one for Edge compute and one for offline data transfer in situations where connectivity is limited.
In most scenarios where customers need to migrate data from a data center to the cloud via the Internet, the company recommends its DataSync service or its on-premise Outpost offering.
