AWS Snowball

AWS Snowball uses physical storage devices to transfer large amounts of data between Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and your onsite data storage location at faster-than-internet speeds. AWS Snowball Edge is a type of Snowball device with on-board storage and compute power for select AWS capabilities.

Snowball Edge can do local processing and edge-computing workloads in addition to transferring data between your local environment and the AWS Cloud. It comes pre-configured and does not have to be connected to the internet, so processing and data collection can take place within isolated operating environments. It can operate in remote locations or harsh operating environments, such as factory floors, oil and gas rigs, mining sites, hospitals, and on moving vehicles. Snowball Edge allows you to run the same software at the edge and access select AWS capabilities as you would with full connectivity to AWS.

Snowball Edge is an effective mechanism for extending cloud workloads to on-premises edge in lieu of more heavyweight options (such as AWS Outposts). The following diagram shows how you can make use of Snowball Edge to run OpenRAN Centralized Units (CU) or Distributed Units (DU) at Cell/Radio Sites and how this may extend to a broader deployment on AWS.

Figure 35 – AWS Snowball Edge