Glacier Deep Archive – Auto tiering to & from Zoom S3 Archive

Using our AWS S3 Connectors customer can store large media assets in AWS S3. This serves as an online archive. Content can be copied or restored from AWS S3 relatively quickly whether you are editing in an office, from home or in the cloud. However, the cost of AWS S3 can start to rise as you begin to store several Terabytes of data. AWS Glacier Deep Archive storage class is designed to provide durable and secure long-term storage for large amounts of data at a price that is competitive with off-premises LTO tapes.

While Glacier Deep Archive is 70-80% cheaper than S3 standard storage class, customers wishing to transition assets to Glacier Deep Archive need to be aware of the following caveats:

  • Moving assets in Zoom S3 Archive to Glacier Deep Archive requires media manager to turn on an S3 lifecycle policy based on a tag (Storage Class = Deep Glacier) on the media files
  • Assets that are tagged with the above value, will be transitioned a day after, unlike copying to AWS S3 this is not an instantaneous operation
  • Assets will not be available for immediate restore after archival to Deep Glacier, the copy in S3 (standard class) is deleted and only a copy in Deep Glacier is kept after the transition completes
  • Transition from S3 to Deep Glacier for TBs of media files will take time, so don’t expect it to immediately reduce your S3 costs
  • Unlike S3, each copy into Deep Glacier will incur a transition cost per file in addition to the storage. For large files the cost is negligible, but for small files such as documents the cost can be significant compared to the cost of storing the document in Deep Glacier. Recommendation is to use Deep Glacier for larger files such as your high-res or raw media
  • Restore from Deep Glacier is much slower compared to S3. The cost of restore also varies based on how fast do you wish to restore:
Restore Cost Tier Restore TimeNotes
StandardWithin 1-2 daysCosts 10x more per GB
Bulk2+ daysCheapest option
  • Due to high cost of restore, Glacier Deep Archive is suitable for media that will rarely ever be restored but for compliance or audit reasons must be retained
  • You can purchase credits for AWS Deep Glacier usage that Evolphin team can apply to restore costs as they can vary every month
  • Assets are restored to S3 from Deep Glacier but need to have an expiration time after which they are deleted from S3. If you need to download these assets please ensure you access them within the time period the restored files are available
  • Number of days restored assets are copied and available in S3 will incur additional S3 costs in addition to any storage costs in Deep Glacier. This can be controlled when you request a restore

S3 to Glacier Deep Archive transition

Step 1: Using Zoom Asset Browser update the metadata tag, Storage Class, on the files you wish to transition to Deep Glacier:

Step 2: Next trigger a search & execute automation in the Visual Asset Browser (VAB) to submit a request to archive to Deep Glacier

Note the minimum time to kick off the transition to Deep Glacier, after you submit a request is 1 day.

VAB > Advanced Search > Select a Saved Search on Storage Class Metadata field such as:

Click on Search and Execute icon to bring up the dialog below and select the action: Send to Deep Glacier:

Once the media files are transitioned to Deep Glacier, an email alert will be send to the media managers.

Restore from Deep Glacier to S3

Step 1: From VAB, select assets whose metadata field Storage Class is Deep Glacier and launch Create Job > Deep Glacier Restore form:

Choose the expiration days (before restored copy is deleted automatically) and the storage tier.

This will submit a restore job. Once the asset is restored, the Storage Class will change to S3 Standard. An email alert will be send to the media admins. Now that the asset is available in S3, editors or users can download it using the Zoom S3 hub.