AWS Import/Export launches support for Legacy Storage Systems
Today Amazon Web Services takes another big step in making it easier to migrate legacy storage systems to the cloud through AWS Import/Export support for ingesting Punch Cards. AWS Import/Export accelerates moving large amounts of data into and out of AWS using portable storage media for transport. Punch cards are paper-based storage media that represent data using the presence or absence of holes in specific positions. With AWS Import/Export for Punch Cards, enterprises can begin using the service to preserve and unlock the large volumes of data that have accumulated over the last century on what was the first broadly adopted digital storage medium.
"Enterprises spent the better half of the 20th century accumulating critical data on punch cards," said Alyssa Henry, General Manager of Amazon S3. "Now that data can be easily transferred into Amazon S3, making it instantly accessible to customers and applications around the world."
AWS Import/Export for Punch Cards initially supports importing 80 and 96 column punch cards that conform to ANSI X3.26 and are encoded using ISO 6586 compliant 7-bit or 8-bit character sets. Customers may send up to 572 sorted cards per package and may send as many packages to AWS as they like. AWS Import/Export loads each card into Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) as a distinct object, uniquely identified by batch and card number.
"We have decades of valuable data stored on punch cards that sit idle in storage cabinets, readable only by specialized, aging systems," said Matt Hunter, CTO of Hollerith Inc. "With AWS Import/Export for Punch Cards, not only are we eliminating large amounts of physical storage space, but we're actively leveraging that data for the first time in years."
For general information on AWS Import/Export, see http://aws.amazon.com/importexport. For details on supported punch card configurations, boxing requirements, and pricing of AWS Import/Export for Punch Cards, see http://aws.amazon.com/importexport/punchcards.
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surely you will support other legacy storage media in the future as well, right? i am particularly interested in importing my old C64 tapes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette
is this already on the roadmap?
Werner,
My current system uses a robust pidgin transport bus to fly my punch card data where it's needed. Does AWS Import/Export support the pidgin transport protocol?
Matt,
I've been trouble getting my pidgin's to be able to carry enough cards because of the heavy weight of my pack of cards in relation to the carrying capacity of each bird. I have a working implementation of UDP over carrier pidgin, but I still need to figure out the CRC part because of the rather high packet loss. Any ideas? I'd love to peck your brain.
Thanks,
Adrian
Superb!
I got my start with punched card FORTRAN IV on an IBM 1130 in 1977; pity I didn't save any of those dusty decks to send into AWS Import/Export :-(.
Adrian,
Payload capacity is a big issue. The TTL of pidgins is relatively low so minimizing hops is a must. The packet loss is a pain because it requires more messages, increasing the amount of traffic, and is quite messy. Also external conditions such as eagles taking out packets is quite a problem.
We've been experimenting with http://www.google.com/google-d-s/promos/storage.html to store the pidgins temporarily and retrieving them from another point. It has been fairly successful but unfortunately it's only eventually consistent as well so we lose a few birds there too.
Matt
This is outrageous - RFC 1149 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149) is twenty years old today. As you can tell from the comments, avian transport is the de facto standard for organizations with legacy punch card systems, but Amazon is making no attempt to support their needs.
I for one will be moving my data to a new cloud. Perhaps a nice nimbostratus to cut down on packet loss.
572 cards per package is an unreasonably low limit. I really hope they increase the package size soon. How about 50 pounds per package to be consistent with other import/export media?