Glacier

intermediate
data
Enhanced Content

Definition

AWS long-term archival storage service for data you rarely access. Like putting old documents in a warehouse - cheaper to store but takes time to retrieve.

Real-World Example

A company stores old employee records in Glacier for compliance, accessing them only when legally required.

Cloud Provider Equivalencies

All are low-cost object storage options designed for long-term retention with higher retrieval latency and/or retrieval fees. AWS implements Glacier as S3 storage classes; Azure uses Blob access tiers; GCP uses storage classes; OCI uses storage tiers. Retrieval time and minimum storage duration vary by provider and tier.

AWS
Amazon S3 Glacier (S3 Glacier storage classes: Glacier Instant Retrieval, Glacier Flexible Retrieval, Glacier Deep Archive)
AZ
Azure Blob Storage Archive access tier
GCP
Google Cloud Storage Archive storage class
OCI
OCI Object Storage Archive tier

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