Amazon Web Services
Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a significant drop in the price of its storage services. The company also introduced several new features for developers who wish to use the Glacier cold storage service of AWS.
The new prices which most of the developers will be concerned about are of S3, which is AWS’ primary cloud storage service. Unlike the six pricing tiers previously, S3 will now feature only three: 0-50 TB; 50 TB-500 TB; and 500+ TB. In most of the places, the prices for S3 will fall by about 20 percent.
In case of Glacier, which AWS’ cold storage service for data that one want to keep in a safe spot but would not be using too much, the price drops are even more significant. In three of the AWS regions (Ireland, Oregon and Northern Virginia), you can now store your data for a mere $0.004 GB/month. This is a straight 43 percent drop in the price of Amazon Glacier.
The more important news for Glacier user is the addition of 2 new retrieval choices. Glacier is set up in a way that it usually takes a while before a data is ready for download. And, this is what lets AWS to provide the service at a very low price; however it can only be used for cold storage and nothing else. Now, Amazon is introducing 2 new option to Glacier which lets users to pay a little extra to receive their data quicker — or one can save a little more by receiving it even slower than Glacier’s default 3 to 5 hour waiting period.
Now, with the new ‘expedited’ option, you will just need to pay $0.03 per 1 GB and $0.01 per request when you get back data and you will get your download within 5 minutes. Amazon Web Services claims that this feature will work best for users who have data in TBs in Glacier.
Moreover, there are 2 types of expedited data retrievals: one is on-demand and second is provisioned retrievals. While On-demand retrievals functions as per the rules mentioned above, Provisioned retrievals are different from it. They will cost about $100 per unit making sure that the facility for your expedited retrieval is available whenever you require it. Every $100 unit promises that you will be able to perform 3 expedited retrievals every 5 minutes with up to 150MB/second throughput. In case you don’t go for these extra units, the expedited retrievals will only be allowed when the capacity to accomplish them will be available.
Furthermore, in case you don’t mind how much time it takes to retrieve your data out of Glacier, then the latest ‘bulk’ options is perfect for you. In bulk option, you retrieve requests may take about 5 to 12 hours, but it will only cost $0.0025 per 1 GB and $0.025 for every 1,000 requests.
Well, a really great news for folks looking to or already are taking services from AWS.