AWS Technical Essentials 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

Amazon Glacier is designed specifically for cost-effective data archiving and long-term storage. It provides a solution for organizations looking to migrate their tape-based backup systems to the cloud while minimizing costs. Glacier offers features such as low retrieval costs for infrequent access to archived data, flexible retrieval options, and durable storage, making it an ideal choice for businesses that need to store large amounts of data over extended periods.

In contrast, the Virtual Tape Shelf and the Virtual Tape Library are components of AWS's storage solutions that provide a bridge between traditional tape backups and cloud storage. They allow existing tape backup applications to utilize AWS storage services without changing how data is accessed or managed. While they facilitate the transition from tape to cloud, Glacier specifically focuses on the low-cost archiving aspect, which aligns perfectly with the requirement stated in the question.

Ephemeral Storage, on the other hand, is not designed for persistent storage needs but rather provides temporary storage for data that is generated and processed during the lifetime of cloud resources, such as EC2 instances. It does not cater to archiving requirements. Therefore, Amazon Glacier stands out as the most suitable option for archiving data from tape-based systems at a low cost.