The real reason Snowmobile exists: to knock out potential opposition to large-scale migration from on-prem data centers into AWS. Most of the intro decisions a

The real reason Snowmobile exists: to knock out potential opposition to large-scale migration from on-prem data centers into AWS. Most of the intro decisions around moving to the cloud happen before Amazon is ever involved in the sales cycle. There are some managerial accountants and IT people getting involved to evaluate options in a process called "Evaluation of Alternatives." At some point, Amazon probably started hearing that the IT people were saying "we can't possibly move all of that data to the cloud, it would swamp our network or take five years just to finish the network transfer." Enter Snowmobile, which cuts that conversation thread off at the knees. Amazon can go to a Fortune 100 company that is evaluating a move and honestly claim that they are prepared to move exabytes of data, physically, into the cloud. And it's not some premium feature that they're going to get charged bajillions for, it's a stock feature of AWS. (Even if it costs a lot of money) Snowmobile isn't targeted at the average customer, it's targeted specifically at the accountants, IT architects, and management consultants evaluating the decision to move all of Fortune 100 Company X from on-prem data centers into 100% AWS. One extra hug from Amazon to let the most risk-averse person know that they have it covered, and would they please go ahead and write their 9-figure check to AWS.