Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced a small, ultra-portable, rugged, and military-grade secure device to run applications and migrate data to AWS.
AWS Snowcone features 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory, 8 TB of storage, and USB-C power (or optional battery). It measures 9 inches x 6 inches x 3 inches (23 cm x 15 cm x 8 cm) and weighs 4.5 lbs (2.1 kg). The device can easily fit in a backpack or messenger bag, standard mailbox, or any type of vehicle, and is light enough to be carried by drone.
AWS said it designed Snowcone to operate in extreme environments or disconnected remote sites (including oil rigs, first responder vehicles, military operations, factory floors, remote offices, hospitals, or movie theaters) for long periods of time without traditional data center conditions. With support for AWS IoT Greengrass, the ability to run Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, and ample local storage, AWS Snowcone can be used as an IoT hub, data aggregation point, application monitor, or lightweight analytics engine.
All data on AWS Snowcone is encrypted using military grade 256-bit keys that customers can manage using the AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Additionally, AWS Snowcone contains anti-tamper and tamper-evident features to help ensure data on the device stays secure during transit.
“Thousands of our customers have found AWS Snowball devices to be ideal for collecting data and running applications in remote and harsh environments. Since 2015, customer use of Snowball devices has greatly increased, as has their need for an even smaller device with even greater portability,” said Bill Vass, VP of Storage, Automation and Management Services, AWS. “With more applications running at the edge for an expanding range of use cases, like analyzing IoT sensor data and machine learning inference, AWS Snowcone makes it easier to collect, store, pre-process, and transfer data from harsh environments with limited space to AWS for more intensive processing.”
