Amazon Debuts AWS Data Transfer Terminals For Faster Cloud Uploads

Amazon Web Services (AWS) says its data transfer terminal offering has gone online.

The terminals, announced in a blog post on Sunday (Dec. 1), provide a physical location where users can bring storage devices to upload data more quickly to the AWS cloud.

The first terminals are based in New York City and Los Angeles, with plans to add more locations around the world. Users can reserve a time slot to visit their closest location and upload data to AWS public endpoints, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) or Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) using a high throughput connection.

“Using AWS Data Transfer Terminal, you can significantly reduce the time of ingesting data with high throughput connectivity in the location nearby you,” the blog post said.

“You can upload large datasets from fleets of vehicles operating and collecting data in metro areas for training machine learning (ML) models, digital audio and video files from content creators for media processing workloads, and mapping or imagery data from local government organizations for geographic analysis,” the post added.

Once data is uploaded to AWS, users can explore the company’s services to generate value from that data, and can also bring AWS Snowball devices to the terminals for uploading. They can then retain their device for continued use without depending on traditional shipping methods.

The announcement comes as AWS is debuting a number of new products and services as it holds its re:Invent conference, such as the new generative artificial intelligence enhancements to the company’s cloud contact center solution, Amazon Connect.

“These enhancements allow users to segment their audience to deliver personalized and timely communications, improve the self-service experience with a generative AI-powered assistant, add customizable AI guardrails and gain AI-driven insights to help managers improve service quality,” PYMNTS wrote Monday (Dec. 2).

Also Monday, the company said that automaker Lotus had chosen it as its preferred cloud provider. In addition, AWS and Orbital Materials teamed to develop new data center decarbonization and efficiency technologies, while Oracle Database@AWS became available in limited preview.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke last month with AWS Global Head of Institutional Payments Nilesh Dusane and FIS General Manager of Enterprise Payments Rijuta Jain about their companies’ joint efforts to help businesses handle cash flow management.

“If you’re a corporate in the telecom industry, they’d rather focus on the telecom part of their business, not being a payments company … and because of that, they’re looking at different things to improve their payments operations,” Dusane said at the time.