AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

Explanation

Why AWS Snowball is the correct answer:

1. Data Volume and Time Constraints:

   • 20 TB = 20,000 GB = 20,000,000 MB
   • Network bandwidth: 15 Mbps = 1.875 MB/s (15 ÷ 8)
   • Maximum utilization: 70% = 1.3125 MB/s

2. Time Calculation:

   • At maximum throughput: 20,000,000 MB ÷ 1.3125 MB/s = 15,238,095 seconds
   • This equals approximately 176 days (15,238,095 ÷ 86,400 seconds/day)
   • The requirement is 30 days, which is impossible with the given network constraints

3. AWS Snowball Solution:

   • AWS Snowball is a physical data transport solution that uses secure appliances to transfer large amounts of data
   • You can order a Snowball device, load your data onto it, and ship it back to AWS
   • This bypasses network limitations entirely
   • Each Snowball device can handle up to 80 TB of data
   • The transfer happens offline, so network bandwidth is not a constraint

Why other options are incorrect:

B. AWS DataSync:

• Designed for ongoing data synchronization over the network
• Still uses network bandwidth, so it would take ~176 days
• Not suitable for one-time migration with tight deadlines and bandwidth constraints

C. Secure VPN connection:

• Would use the same limited network bandwidth
• Would take ~176 days to complete
• Doesn't address the fundamental bandwidth limitation

D. Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration:

• Uses Amazon CloudFront's globally distributed edge locations
• Optimizes for faster uploads but still uses network bandwidth
• Maximum improvement is limited by the source's upload capacity
• Would still take far longer than 30 days

Key Takeaway: When migrating large datasets with limited bandwidth and tight deadlines, AWS Snowball (or Snowmobile for petabyte-scale data) is the appropriate solution for offline data transfer.