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posted by martyb on Friday March 20 2020, @03:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the cloud-should-be-free-of-financial-costs dept.

NASA to launch 247 petabytes of data into AWS – but forgot about eye-watering cloudy egress costs before lift-off

Audit finds that error could actually mean less data flows to boffins because space agency may not be able to afford downloads

NASA needs 215 more petabytes of storage by the year 2025, and expects Amazon Web Services to provide the bulk of that capacity. However, the space agency didn't realize this would cost it plenty in cloud egress charges. As in, it will have to pay as scientists download its data.

That omission alone has left NASA's cloud strategy pointing at the ground rather than at the heavens.

The data in question will come from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) program, which collects information from the many missions that observe our planet. NASA makes those readings available through the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

To store all the data and run EOSDIS, NASA operates a dozen Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) that provide pleasing redundancy. But NASA is tired of managing all that infrastructure, so in 2019, it picked AWS to host it all

[...] "Specifically, the agency faces the possibility of substantial cost increases for data egress from the cloud," the Inspector General's Office wrote, explaining that today NASA doesn't incur extra costs when users access data from its DAACs. "However, when end users download data from Earthdata Cloud, the agency, not the user, will be charged every time data is egressed.

How many petabytes is SLS worth, I wonder?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @06:33AM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @06:33AM (#973422)

    Could someone explain what "egrets costs" are to those of us not foolish enough to store our data on some stranger's servers, or use Docker, or Meat, or Slack, or Zoom? So, the cloud has a golden parachute instead of a sliver lying?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @08:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @08:12AM (#973431)

    There is no real easy answer to that one, it depends on what type of deal and account you have.
    https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/ [amazon.com]

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 20 2020, @09:15AM

    by Bot (3902) on Friday March 20 2020, @09:15AM (#973433) Journal

    dunno, anyways local solutions plus distributed encrypted by defaul schemes for backup (tahoe lafs, siacoin, blockstack, storj...) feature very reduced regrets cost.

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday March 20 2020, @09:30AM (3 children)

    by mhajicek (51) on Friday March 20 2020, @09:30AM (#973435)

    Ransom.

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 20 2020, @01:45PM (2 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday March 20 2020, @01:45PM (#973480) Homepage
      Eww, nasty term, terrible connotations. It's more something wholesome like rent seeking.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 20 2020, @05:46PM (1 child)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 20 2020, @05:46PM (#973570) Journal

        Not rent seeking. It needs to sound better than ransom or rent seeking. A wholesome sounding term.

        Cloud Services

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:34AM

          by mhajicek (51) on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:34AM (#973688)

          Emphasis on getting serviced.

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @10:45AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @10:45AM (#973446)

    It's a cloud service. They're trying to make it rain.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @01:34PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 20 2020, @01:34PM (#973470)

      > It's a cloud service. They're trying to make it rain.

      Shower of gold for Amazon. Golden shower for NASA.

      • (Score: 2) by looorg on Friday March 20 2020, @03:37PM

        by looorg (578) on Friday March 20 2020, @03:37PM (#973527)

        Overall the entire cloud storage thing does seem to be summed up along those lines -- or the drug dealer special where the first taste is free and after that not so much. Upload all your data to us, almost infinite storage, next to no costs. Then they charge you for downloading your own data. It's a bit of a wonky idea really. Great for them, not so great for anyone else. Unless you plan on using it for like long term, never really access it unless shit hits the fan later.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 20 2020, @01:40PM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday March 20 2020, @01:40PM (#973475) Homepage
    Ygrette's that hottie from north of the wall.

    However, "egress" is a lovely old word with its roots in Latin, often found in the opposite context to "ingress" (the being the old pair of prefices ex- and in-).
    The "-gress" part is quite common, it's found in congress, aggression (why did I think of that immediately after 'congress'?!?), digress, progress, regress, transgress, and even in a grad- form in grade, degrade, gradual, graduate. Let's not forget "ingredient". You might be able to spot the commonality between some of those - and if not, I'll tease you no longer, it's to do with making steps, walking, or simply going somewhere.

    So an egress is a way out, and in ingress is a way in. Both ingress and egress filtering are common terms when talking about network security. Egress costs would be the costs for data going out of the servers.

    I remember hearing a tale, possibly apocryphal, about a travelling zoo which was way too popular and overcrowded, and the organisers put up a sign saying "to the egress". People followed it, thinking it was a new exotic animal they'd never heard of before, and ended up outside, thus making room for more paying customers to come in the front!
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 20 2020, @02:20PM

      by Bot (3902) on Friday March 20 2020, @02:20PM (#973495) Journal

      gradior, ĕris, gressus sum, gradi
      v intr dep to walk, procede

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      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday March 20 2020, @05:02PM

    by Freeman (732) on Friday March 20 2020, @05:02PM (#973554) Journal

    It's how many egrets you can afford. What you do with those birds is up to you, though.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:12AM

    by sjames (2882) on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:12AM (#973681) Journal

    Could someone explain what "egrets costs" are

    Cage, food, wrangler, vet bills, it all adds up.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday March 21 2020, @07:21AM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Saturday March 21 2020, @07:21AM (#973757) Homepage

    It costs money to transfer data. It costs a lot of money to transfer 247 petabytes of data. No amount of conservative paranoia changes that. It's cheaper to transfer the data yourself, if your time is free.

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