Case Study: AWS S3 Glacier (Archival) Storage for one of Travel & Tour Customer
Customer Overview:
- Industry: Travel and Tourism
- Size: Medium Enterprise (51+ employees)
- Location: Delhi, India
- Primary Operations: They relied on on-premises storage for managing customer bookings, travel itineraries, media assets, and business documentation. To enhance archival storage and ensure compliance with long-term data retention policies, the company bought a cost-effective and scalable solution using Amazon S3 Glacier.
Business Challenges:They faced several issues with its existing storage infrastructure:
1. High Storage Costs for Archival Data
- Retaining large volumes of historical travel data, customer records, and marketing materials led to increased on-premises storage costs.
- Frequent capacity upgrades and maintenance resulted in high capital expenditures (CapEx).2. Compliance & Data Retention Requirements
- The company needed to retain certain customer records and travel documents for regulatory and audit purposes.A secure and tamper-proof storage solution was required to meet industry compliance standards.3. Data Management Complexity
- Unstructured data (e.g., images, videos, past trip records) was scattered across multiple storage systems, making retrieval inefficient.
- Lack of an automated data lifecycle management strategy resulted in inefficient use of storage resources.
On-prem existing architecture:
| Storage solution | AWS S3 Glacier |
| Number of compute systems protected | 1 |
| Capacity Protected (TB) | 1 TB |
| Processor | 4vCpu |
| Memory | 16 GB |
| Internal 3.5″ drives (front) | TB HDD |
| Total Data Size | 2 TB |
| Archival Data Size | 1 TB |
Solution Provided by Emegh Private Limited (AWS Provider):
Solution Provided by Emegh Private Limited: To address these challenges, Emegh Private Limited recommended and implemented Amazon S3 Glacier as the primary archival storage solution. This migration facilitated secure, cost-effective, and long-term data retention.
Architecture Diagram
Amazon S3 Glacier:
Amazon S3 Glacier is a low-cost, secure cloud storage service designed for long-term data archiving and backup. It offers high durability, encryption, and compliance controls. With retrieval options like Expedited, Standard, and Bulk, users can balance cost and access speed. Integrated lifecycle policies automate data transitions, making it ideal for regulatory compliance, historical records, and infrequent access storage.
Proposed Solution:
1. Migration to Amazon S3 Glacier for Archival Storage
- Unstructured and historical travel data was moved to Amazon S3 Glacier for low-cost, long-term storage.
- Frequently accessed data remained in Amazon S3 Standard, while less frequently accessed data was moved to S3 Glacier Deep Archive using lifecycle policies.
2. Automated Data Lifecycle Management
- Implemented S3 lifecycle policies to transition data from S3 Standard to S3 Glacier and Glacier Deep Archive based on access frequency.
- AWS Lambda automated metadata tagging for quick retrieval of archived documents.
3. Improved Data Accessibility & Compliance
- Amazon S3 Glacier Vault Lock was configured to enforce compliance retention policies.
- AWS IAM policies ensured role-based access to archived data, improving security and governance.
Benefits:
1. Cost Savings
- Reduced long-term storage costs by 70% by moving archival data of size 1TB to S3 Glacier Deep Archive.
- Eliminated capital expenditures on maintaining on-premises archival storage.
2. Scalability & Flexibility
- S3 Glacier provided virtually unlimited scalability for archival data without the need for physical storage expansion.
- Data could be retrieved on demand based on the retrieval tier (Expedited, Standard, or Bulk retrieval).
3. Compliance & Security
- Ensured regulatory compliance with automated retention policies using Glacier Vault Lock.
- Data encryption at rest and in transit using AWS Key Management Service (KMS) for added security.
4. Operational Efficiency
- Automated lifecycle management reduced manual intervention and optimized storage costs.
- AWS Lambda-enabled automation streamlined metadata management and searchability for archived records.
Key Takeaways:
- Amazon S3 Glacier and Glacier Deep Archive provided a scalable, cost-effective archival storage solution for Our Customer
- Automated data lifecycle policies ensured efficient storage management and reduced operational overhead.
- AWS security and compliance features helped maintain data integrity and regulatory compliance.
Pricing Calculator link:-
https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=010c1f8bab62723d999a44c70fa9c74d4b55ab4f
