Amazon Web Services Inc. today added a new product to its family of data migration devices, introducing a secure edge computing and data transfer device it calls AWS Snowcone.

The small, ultraportable and rugged 4.5-pound device offers up to 8 terabytes of usable storage and is targeted at the rising number of edge computing workloads, where space, power and cooling features are limited. The device measures just nine by six by three inches, and can easily fit into a backpack or a standard mailbox. It’s also light enough that it can be carried by most drones.

AWS Snowcone runs on two central processing units, has 4 gigabytes of memory for compute operations and a USB-C connection, plus an optional battery unit.

Amazon Chief Evangelist Jeff Barr said in a blog post that Snowcone’s primary purpose is for data migration, content distribution and tactical edge computing, “internet of things,” transportation, logistics and autonomous vehicles use cases. The device is tamper-proof, water-resistant and dust-tight and can transfer data using the AWS DataSync service. Alternatively, the box itself can simply be shipped off to Amazon using an electronic ink shipping label that sends it to the requested AWS cloud region.

Once Amazon receives Snowcone from its customers, the data is moved to an Amazon S3 bucket and verified, which takes about a day to complete, Barr said. The data is then completely erased from the device and sanitized of any customer information before being reused. Data on the device is encrypted using 256-bit keys that are managed via Amazon’s company key management system.

AWS Snowcone joins the Amazon Snow family that includes its original Snowball device, which was launched in 2015 and can transfer up to 50 terabytes of data at once. The company also offers its massive, trailer-hauled AWS Snowmobile data container that can store exabytes of information.

“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,” said Bill Vass, Amazon’s vice president of storage, automation and management services.

Amazon said Snowcone could be especially useful for customers that operate in harsh or remote environments, such as oil rigs or first responder vehicles on battlefields. The device supports the AWS IoT Greengrass platform that helps to boost compute power in edge devices via its public cloud. It can also run Elastic Compute instances for data aggregation and IoT hub workloads.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE that AWS Snowcone was an interesting offering, since getting data to the cloud remains a big challenge for many customers, especially those with sites at disconnected edge locations.

“AWS Snowcone makes it easier for the extreme edge to capture data and process information,” Mueller said. “Effectively, what this means is that AWS has entered the ruggedized PC market, but the only difference is that Snowcone has no display. Still, company executives will appreciate having another option to extend their next-generation applications to the edge.”

AWS Snowcone is being made available first in the AWS East (Northern Virginia) and AWS West (Oregon) regions, with additional regions to be added soon.

Photo: Amazon