Faster Restores for Amazon S3 Glacier

Commvault automates a cost-optimized data lifecycle that tiers copies to archival storage for less frequently accessed data. Combining Amazon S3 Glacier, Amazon S3 Batch Operations, and Commvault, you can achieve ultra-low-cost storage and optimal restore times.

Commvault supports the use of S3 Batch Operations to perform faster restores of objects that are stored in Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive, and Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering Archive Access and Deep Archive Access Tiers.

You can use S3 Batch Operations to perform large-scale batch operations on Amazon S3 objects. Commvault integrates S3 Batch Operations with the Commvault Cloud Archive Recall Workflow to simplify restores of AWS and hybrid workloads that are stored in Amazon S3 asynchronously-accessed storage classes.

Archive Retrieval Tier Selection

To achieve faster restores for S3 Glacier restore objects, requests must be submitted using Amazon S3 Batch Operations and the STANDARD retrieval tier. (See Glacier Job Tier.) The STANDARD retrieval tier is the default option for retrieval requests that do not specify the retrieval option. (See Archive Retrieval options.)

Restore requests incur retrieval fees. See Amazon S3 pricing. S3 Intelligent-Tiering Standard retrieval and restore requests are free of charge.

Standard retrievals are flexible, economical, and do not require EXPEDITED credits to facilitate more rapid restores. For S3 Glacier object restore service expectations, see Archive retrieval options.

Before S3 Glacier Faster Restores

Before the availability of Faster Restores for S3 Glacier, Commvault orchestrated the restore of data from S3 Glacier asynchronous storage classes, with the following observed restore times in Commvault lab testing.

The values in the following tables represent the total elapsed time to complete the end-to-end workload restore. For the complete list of workloads supported for faster restores, see Cloud Services and Applications Support for Archive Cloud Storage.

AWS workload tested

Total elapsed restore time (with Combined Storage Tier)

Total elapsed restore time (without Combined Storage Tier)

50–150 GB Amazon EC2 instance or containerized application in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval

Within 3–5 hours

Within 5–10 hours

50–150 GB Amazon EC2 instance or containerized application in S3 Glacier Deep Archive

Within 12 hours

Within 24 hours

After S3 Glacier Faster Restores

With S3 Glacier Faster Restores, Commvault lab testing found an up to 85% decrease in end-to-end restore times, when testing the recovery of full Amazon EC2 instances. For the complete list of workloads supported for faster restores, see Cloud Services and Applications Support for Archive Cloud Storage.

AWS workload tested

Total elapsed restore time (with Combined Storage Tier)

Total elapsed restore time (without Combined Storage Tier)

Micro 10 GB Amazon EC2 instance from S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval

30 minutes

60 minutes

Small 58 GB Amazon EC2 instance from S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval

45 minutes

1 hour and 30 minutes

Micro 10 GB Amazon EC2 instance from S3 Glacier Deep Archive

9 hours

18 hours

Small 50 GB Amazon EC2 instance form S3 Glacier Deep Archive

9 hours

18 hours

Medium 250 GB Amazon EC2 instance from S3 Glacier Deep Archive

10 hours

20 hours

Reference Architecture for Faster Restores from S3 Glacier

Using Amazon S3 Glacier Faster Restores (1)

In this reference architecture, Commvault protects both Amazon EC2 instances and Amazon EKS containerized applications both in the Region and on-premises (on AWS Outposts) to Amazon S3.

Commvault uses storage copies to copy data between S3 Standard I-A, S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, and S3 Glacier Deep Archive as data ages and is accessed less frequently. Faster restores for Amazon S3 provides additional throughput for restores of objects in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval and S3 Glacier Deep Archive by leveraging Amazon S3 Batch Operations to perform bulk restore requests.

For a complete list of AWS services and hybrid workloads supported for faster restores from S3 Glacier, see Cloud Services and Applications Support for Archive Cloud Storage.

Support for Amazon S3 Storage Classes

Commvault supports the following Amazon S3 storage classes for Faster Restores for S3 Glacier:

  • Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
  • Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive
  • Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering Archive Access and Deep Archive Access tiers
  • Commvault Combined Storage Tier with S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
  • Commvault Combined Storage Tier with S3 Glacier Deep Archive

Note

Commvault recommends always using Commvault Combined Storage Tier when using Amazon S3 Glacier asynchronous storage classes (such S3 Flexible Retrieval, S3 Deep Archive, and S3 Intelligent-Tiering Archive Access and Deep Archive Access Tiers) for streamlined recovery.

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