Creating your gateway
The overview sections on this page provide a high-level synopsis of how the Storage Gateway creation process works. For step-by-step procedures to create a specific type of gateway using the Storage Gateway console, see the following topics:
Important
Amazon FSx File Gateway is no longer available to new customers. Existing customers of
FSx File Gateway can continue to use the service normally. For capabilities similar to
FSx File Gateway, visit this blog post
Overview - Gateway Activation
Gateway activation involves setting up your gateway, connecting it to AWS, then reviewing your settings and activating it.
Set up gateway
To set up your Storage Gateway, you first choose the type of gateway you want to create and the host platform on which you will run the gateway virtual appliance. You then download the gateway virtual appliance template for the platform of your choice and deploy it in your on-premises environment. You can also deploy your Storage Gateway as a physical hardware appliance that you order from your preferred reseller, or as an Amazon EC2 instance in your AWS cloud environment. When you deploy the gateway appliance, you allocate local physical disk space on the virtualization host.
Connect to AWS
The next step is to connect your gateway to AWS. To do this, you first choose the type of service endpoint you want to use for communications between the gateway virtual appliance and AWS services in the cloud. This endpoint can be accessible from the public internet, or only from within your Amazon VPC, where you have full control over the network security configuration. You then specify the gateway's IP address or its activation key, which you can obtain by connecting to the local console on the gateway appliance.
Review and activate
At this point, you'll have an opportunity to review the gateway and connection options you chose, and make changes if necessary. When everything is set up the way you want you can activate the gateway. Before you can start using your activated gateway, you will need to configure some additional settings and create your storage resources.
Overview - Gateway Configuration
After you activate your Storage Gateway, you need to perform some additional configuration. In this step, you allocate the physical storage you provisioned on the gateway host platform to be used as either the cache or the upload buffer by the gateway appliance. You then configure settings to help monitor the health of your gateway using Amazon CloudWatch Logs and CloudWatch alarms, and add tags to help identify the gateway, if desired. Before you can start using your activated and configured gateway, you will need to create your storage resources.
Overview - Storage Resources
After you activate and configure your Storage Gateway, you need to create cloud storage resources for it to use. Depending on the type of gateway you created, you will use the Storage Gateway console to create Volumes, Tapes, or Amazon S3 or Amazon FSx files shares to associate with it. Each gateway type uses its respective resources to emulate the related type of network storage infrastructure, and transfers the data you write to it into the AWS cloud.
