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With the cost per GB for Glacier Storage now. Any small to medium company would be fiscally irresponsible to not use it as a primary disaster recovery option. $

by Trisell 11y ago

With the cost per GB for Glacier Storage now. Any small to medium company would be fiscally irresponsible to not use it as a primary disaster recovery option. $84 per year per TB is ridiculous for geographically diverse storage.

panarky 11y ago
Glacier pricing is cheap only if you don't need to access it quickly. Glacier pricing is surprisingly complicated, and the actual cost can be much higher than $0.01 per GB-month if you don't read the fine print. The biggest gotcha is that you can only access 0.17% of the data you've stored in any given day without extra charges. So if you've stored 1000 GB, you can only access 1.7 GB per day for free. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9184466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9184466
- skuhn 11y ago
  I think the math for Glacier actually gets a lot simpler if you look at it this way: Glacier is only cost effective if you never want to access that data ever again. There are actually use cases like this, when you will almost certainly never want to restore this data, but just in case you put it in Glacier. For anything that you expect to ever reasonably want to restore in a reasonable timeframe (like a MySQL database backup), it just doesn't make sense: it's too slow and too expensive.
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anarazel 11y ago
In many cases the recovery times won't be sufficient for that. If the bulk is archived or log data a couple days/weeks of recovery are OK, but of you need everything immediately...
Trisell 11y ago
In most cases a half decent should IT department has insurance that covers a DR event, then the cost is irrevalent. If that is not that case, even the cost of getting that data out of the cloud, will be cheaper the building geographically separate backup locations. I'm not talking about large companies. I'm talking about small to midsize companies that need DR, but don't have money to build several DR sites to do proper DR. And I'm not talking about regular backup data that is accessed quickly as needed. I'm talking about true DR that is only accessed when you have a catastrophic data center event.
Trisell 11y ago
In most cases a half decent should IT department has insurance that covers a DR event, then the cost is irrevalent. If that is not that case, even the cost of getting that data out of the cloud, will be cheaper the building geographically separate backup locations. I'm not talking about large companies. I'm talking about small to midsize companies that need DR, but don't have money to build several DR sites to do proper DR. And I'm not talking about regular backup data that is accessed quickly as needed. I'm talking about true DR that is only accessed when you have a catastrophic data center event.
NeutronBoy 11y ago
Disaster Recovery != storage Disaster recovery is being able to get your business up and running again. It would be pretty rare to have a disaster that wipes all your data, but hardware is intact and in perfect working condition. Your DR strategy needs to include hardware, location, people, everything.
- Trisell 11y ago
  I totally agree. A lot of small to medium businesses can't/won't afford true DR. This is a lower cost way to get your data offsite, and should you have a DR event that you can't fix with local or semi local backups, then you have this. A lot of businesses are unable to afford geographically diverse storage.
Wilya 11y ago
Everything related to Glacier is ridiculously complicated. The pricing is tricky (the per-GB price is cheap, but the retrieval can get horribly expensive). There's the fixed 4-hour delay for all actions (including listing stored files), which makes any interaction a pain. And there aren't really any good clients or high-level libraries that abstract away this complexity. For a disaster recovery, I would certainly go for something simpler and easier to use. When everything is one fire, the last thing I need is dealing with a tricky API to restore the company files.
- Trisell 11y ago
  There are some companies that sell things to IT people that use glacier natively. Veeam makes a very good backup product to backup VMs and uses Glacier natively. No need to use APIs you just select the VM you want to restore and it brings it down from your Glacier store. You have to remember that most IT people have no idea how to use an API, and aren't on Hacker News.
- UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
  I've used it a bit, and I have to say I agree. Look Glacier is great and the prices are really good. But it isn't something an SMB wants to be using directly. Now a large enterprise who can dedicate engineers to this, sure, but an SMB really wants to be utilising Glacier by means of a third party service in my opinion. I think it is wise to think of Glacier as cold storage. So if you need recoveries RIGHT NOW, well, it may not be for you. If you can wait 24 hours? Sure (and, yes, I realise you can recover faster than that, but between transfer times, and actually starting the transfer it can take a while).
- georgeott 11y ago
  There are Glacier clients that allow you to manage the "Restore Speed" so you don't get hit with ridiculous price hikes. Glacier is PERFECT if you just need to restore a photo or document, and not the entire repo.
  - dexterdog 11y ago
    But you have to store things in larger archives or the per-object overhead hurts your pricing. When Glacier first came out I really wanted to use it, but it had so much complexity over just treating it like an object store that I didn't use it. Then add the fact that S3 Standard kept coming down in price and Glacier just stood still (thus the name).
PhantomGremlin 11y ago
Are we certain that Glacier is "geographically diverse storage."? We know that to be true for S3 Standard. Even S3 Reduced Redundancy claims "The RRS option stores objects on multiple devices across multiple facilities". But I haven't seen Amazon make a similar diversity claim for Glacier. Perhaps it's implied by the "durability of 99.999999999% of objects" claim they make? Hard to achieve that durability in a single data center if there's a non-zero probability of something like a fire or other catastrophe.
- discodave 11y ago
  What do you mean by 'geographically diverse'? AWS has a model of 'availability zones' and regions. A region like us-east-1 means a bunch of AZs (a.k.a. datacenters) that are close to each other. S3 (and most AWS services) copies your data across multiple AZs but they are all pretty close together.
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    What do you mean by 'geographically diverse'? I used those words because the person I was responding to said: $84 per year per TB is ridiculous for geographically diverse storage. The interesting question to me is "how close is too close"? Here in the Pacific Northwest we've had quite a few wildfires this summer. Even if Amazon's Oregon data center isn't anywhere near a forest, there are still failure modes that can affect a widespread area. For example, fires can disrupt power lines. They can also result in mandatory evacuations of large areas. They can also cause highways to be shutdown for many days. All of which can impact multiple AZs that are "close to each other".
vacri 11y ago
Glacier is archival, not Disaster Recovery. A four-hour wait to start restoring functionality is not acceptable for most online services. Glacier may be part of a 'scorched earth' disaster recovery, but it (almost definitively) can't be a primary option.

by Trisell 11y ago

panarky 11y ago

Glacier pricing is cheap only if you don't need to access it quickly. Glacier pricing is surprisingly complicated, and the actual cost can be much higher than $0.01 per GB-month if you don't read the fine print. The biggest gotcha is that you can only access 0.17% of the data you've stored in any given day without extra charges. So if you've stored 1000 GB, you can only access 1.7 GB per day for free. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9184466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9184466

skuhn 11y ago
I think the math for Glacier actually gets a lot simpler if you look at it this way: Glacier is only cost effective if you never want to access that data ever again. There are actually use cases like this, when you will almost certainly never want to restore this data, but just in case you put it in Glacier. For anything that you expect to ever reasonably want to restore in a reasonable timeframe (like a MySQL database backup), it just doesn't make sense: it's too slow and too expensive.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

anarazel 11y ago

In many cases the recovery times won't be sufficient for that. If the bulk is archived or log data a couple days/weeks of recovery are OK, but of you need everything immediately...

Trisell 11y ago

In most cases a half decent should IT department has insurance that covers a DR event, then the cost is irrevalent. If that is not that case, even the cost of getting that data out of the cloud, will be cheaper the building geographically separate backup locations. I'm not talking about large companies. I'm talking about small to midsize companies that need DR, but don't have money to build several DR sites to do proper DR. And I'm not talking about regular backup data that is accessed quickly as needed. I'm talking about true DR that is only accessed when you have a catastrophic data center event.

Trisell 11y ago

NeutronBoy 11y ago

Disaster Recovery != storage Disaster recovery is being able to get your business up and running again. It would be pretty rare to have a disaster that wipes all your data, but hardware is intact and in perfect working condition. Your DR strategy needs to include hardware, location, people, everything.

Trisell 11y ago
I totally agree. A lot of small to medium businesses can't/won't afford true DR. This is a lower cost way to get your data offsite, and should you have a DR event that you can't fix with local or semi local backups, then you have this. A lot of businesses are unable to afford geographically diverse storage.

Wilya 11y ago

Everything related to Glacier is ridiculously complicated. The pricing is tricky (the per-GB price is cheap, but the retrieval can get horribly expensive). There's the fixed 4-hour delay for all actions (including listing stored files), which makes any interaction a pain. And there aren't really any good clients or high-level libraries that abstract away this complexity. For a disaster recovery, I would certainly go for something simpler and easier to use. When everything is one fire, the last thing I need is dealing with a tricky API to restore the company files.

Trisell 11y ago
There are some companies that sell things to IT people that use glacier natively. Veeam makes a very good backup product to backup VMs and uses Glacier natively. No need to use APIs you just select the VM you want to restore and it brings it down from your Glacier store. You have to remember that most IT people have no idea how to use an API, and aren't on Hacker News.
UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
I've used it a bit, and I have to say I agree. Look Glacier is great and the prices are really good. But it isn't something an SMB wants to be using directly. Now a large enterprise who can dedicate engineers to this, sure, but an SMB really wants to be utilising Glacier by means of a third party service in my opinion. I think it is wise to think of Glacier as cold storage. So if you need recoveries RIGHT NOW, well, it may not be for you. If you can wait 24 hours? Sure (and, yes, I realise you can recover faster than that, but between transfer times, and actually starting the transfer it can take a while).
georgeott 11y ago
There are Glacier clients that allow you to manage the "Restore Speed" so you don't get hit with ridiculous price hikes. Glacier is PERFECT if you just need to restore a photo or document, and not the entire repo.
- dexterdog 11y ago
  But you have to store things in larger archives or the per-object overhead hurts your pricing. When Glacier first came out I really wanted to use it, but it had so much complexity over just treating it like an object store that I didn't use it. Then add the fact that S3 Standard kept coming down in price and Glacier just stood still (thus the name).

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

Are we certain that Glacier is "geographically diverse storage."? We know that to be true for S3 Standard. Even S3 Reduced Redundancy claims "The RRS option stores objects on multiple devices across multiple facilities". But I haven't seen Amazon make a similar diversity claim for Glacier. Perhaps it's implied by the "durability of 99.999999999% of objects" claim they make? Hard to achieve that durability in a single data center if there's a non-zero probability of something like a fire or other catastrophe.

discodave 11y ago
What do you mean by 'geographically diverse'? AWS has a model of 'availability zones' and regions. A region like us-east-1 means a bunch of AZs (a.k.a. datacenters) that are close to each other. S3 (and most AWS services) copies your data across multiple AZs but they are all pretty close together.
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  What do you mean by 'geographically diverse'? I used those words because the person I was responding to said: $84 per year per TB is ridiculous for geographically diverse storage. The interesting question to me is "how close is too close"? Here in the Pacific Northwest we've had quite a few wildfires this summer. Even if Amazon's Oregon data center isn't anywhere near a forest, there are still failure modes that can affect a widespread area. For example, fires can disrupt power lines. They can also result in mandatory evacuations of large areas. They can also cause highways to be shutdown for many days. All of which can impact multiple AZs that are "close to each other".

vacri 11y ago

Glacier is archival, not Disaster Recovery. A four-hour wait to start restoring functionality is not acceptable for most online services. Glacier may be part of a 'scorched earth' disaster recovery, but it (almost definitively) can't be a primary option.