Use a Storage Gateway tape gateway to reach on-premises tape from AWS

SAP-C02 By islever Editorial Last updated

Determine the optimal migration approach for existing workloads. Determine a new architecture for existing workloads.

Short answer

B Use a Storage Gateway tape gateway so the MAM can read the tape library, then enrich metadata with Rekognition via Lambda.

Question

A media company has a 30-T8 repository of digital news videos. These videos are stored on tape in an on-premises tape library and referenced by a Media Asset Management (MAM) system. The company wants to enrich the metadata for these videos in an automated fashion and put them into a searchable catalog by using a MAM feature. The company must be able to search based on information in the video, such as objects, scenery items, or people’s faces. A catalog is available that contains faces of people who have appeared in the videos that include an image of each person. The company would like to migrate these videos to AWS. The company has a high-speed AWS Direct Connect connection with AWS and would like to move the MAM solution video content directly from its current file system. How can these requirements be met by using the LEAST amount of ongoing management overhead and causing MINIMAL disruption to the existing system?
  1. Set up an AWS Storage Gateway, file gateway appliance on-premises. Use the MAM solution to extract the videos from the current archive and push them into the file gateway. Use the catalog of faces to build a collection in Amazon Rekognition. Build an AWS Lambda function that invokes the Rekognition Javascript SDK to have Rekognition pull the video from the Amazon S3 files backing the file gateway, retrieve the required metadata, and push the metadata into the MAM solution.
  2. Set up an AWS Storage Gateway, tape gateway appliance on-premises. Use the MAM solution to extract the videos from the current archive and push them into the tape gateway. Use the catalog of faces to build a collection in Amazon Rekognition. Build an AWS Lambda function that invokes the Rekognition Javascript SDK to have Amazon Rekognition process the video in the tape gateway, retrieve the required metadata, and push the metadata into the MAM solution. Correct Answer
  3. Configure a video ingestion stream by using Amazon Kinesis Video Streams. Use the catalog of faces to build a collection in Amazon Rekognition. Stream the videos from the MAM solution into Kinesis Video Streams. Configure Amazon Rekognition to process the streamed videos. Then, use a stream consumer to retrieve the required metadata, and push the metadata into the MAM solution. Configure the stream to store the videos in Amazon S3.
  4. Set up an Amazon EC2 instance that runs the OpenCV libraries. Copy the videos, images, and face catalog from the on-premises library into an Amazon EBS volume mounted on this EC2 instance. Process the videos to retrieve the required metadata, and push the metadata into the MAM solution, while also copying the video files to an Amazon S3 bucket.

Key Takeaways

A tape gateway is the only Storage Gateway type that can read the existing tape media, and it exposes the tapes as a file share over NFS with the content in S3 behind it, so the MAM can read and write to the library without any change to its workflow.

A media company has 30 TB of news video on tape in an on-premises tape library, managed by a Media Asset Management system. It must enrich metadata automatically and make videos searchable by content, using an existing face catalog as a Rekognition collection, and it wants minimal disruption to the existing system.

Common mistake: Choosing a file gateway because the goal is to reach S3. A file gateway requires its own local file system to back it, and the videos currently live on tape, so a file gateway cannot read the tape media at all. The data format of the source is what determines the gateway type, not the destination.

Expert Analysis

Why the Answer Is Correct

The videos are on tape, so a tape gateway is the correct Storage Gateway type: it mounts the existing tape library as an NFS file share and stores the data in the S3 bucket that backs it, without changing the MAM or moving the tapes. A Lambda function drives Amazon Rekognition using the face catalog as a collection, pulls each video from the S3 backing the gateway, obtains the metadata, and writes it back to the MAM, which then makes the videos searchable. This keeps the tapes and the MAM workflow in place, so ongoing management is limited to the gateway appliance and the scheduled enrichment function.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

A: A file gateway backs an application with a local file system and cannot read the tape media in the library, so it does not solve the access problem at all, and the option's premise that the current system is a file system does not match the stated tape library. C: Kinesis Video Streams requires a live stream of every video, and there is no other application processing this data, so building a streaming pipeline for batch backfill is unnecessary complexity. D: Copying 30 TB of tape content plus the face catalog into an EBS volume on a single EC2 instance creates a large self-managed server and still requires that instance to run the processing, which raises rather than lowers management overhead.

Community Comment Notes

The community was split 66 to 34 between A and B. The arguments for B cited the Storage Gateway tape gateway documentation and noted that only a tape gateway can read the tape library that the question explicitly describes. The arguments for A leaned on the phrase move the video content directly from its current file system, but the setup states the videos are on tape, so the gateway type must match the tape media.

Official Reference

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/latest/userguide/what-is-tape-gateway.html

This link opens the official vendor documentation in a new tab.

Community Votes

A
66%
B
34%

66% of anonymous learners picked answer A. Votes are pick records left by other test-takers — they are not the verified answer.

Discussion 18 contributions

Compiled from public community threads and reader submissions, lightly edited for clarity. Handles and vote tallies are shown as recorded, and comments reflect the views of individual contributors.

From public community threads 18

  1. Hizumi 👍 5 Answered B
    Answer is B - Use Tape Gateway, then Lambda and Rekognition can be used to process and index the data for the MAM system. https://aws.amazon.com/storagegateway/vtl/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/file-interface-to-aws-storage-gateway/
  2. felon124 👍 3 Answered A
    It is not possible to directly invoke Amazon Rekognition to process videos that are stored on an AWS Storage Gateway (whether it's a file gateway or tape gateway). Amazon Rekognition processes videos that are stored in Amazon S3.
  3. [Removed] 👍 3 Answered A
    Use the MAM solution to extract the videos from the current archive and push them into
  4. JoeTromundo 👍 2 Answered A
    AWS Rekognition is capable of processing both images and videos from the following sources: Amazon S3, directly passed images, Kinesis Video Streams. Although option C mentions Kinesis Video Streams, it would be an overkill for a scenario where videos are not being streamed in real time, and it introduces unnecessary complexity. So the solution using the LEAST amount of ongoing management overhead and causing MINIMAL disruption to the existing system is A.
  5. Danm86 👍 2
    I believe A should be the write answer of using file gateway, since there is processing of data required before storing. and Tape Gateway cannot be directly used, it involves complexity
Show 13 more comments
  1. asquared16 👍 2 Answered A
    Yes the videos were stored on tape on premise, but the solution requires active processing later on, this can't be done on Tape GW; won't make sense.
  2. kupo777 👍 2
    A A tape gateway appliance is required. AWS Storage Gateway also requires S3 or other storage.
  3. Russs99 👍 2 Answered A
    ape Gateway is designed for offline data transfer, not ideal for actively accessed videos.
  4. toma 👍 2
    Answer is B: "These videos are stored on tape in an on-premises tape library...."
  5. mkgiz 👍 2 Answered A
    Use the MAM solution to extract the videos from the current archive
  6. 0b43291 👍 1 Answered A
    Option A leverages fully managed AWS services (AWS Storage Gateway, Amazon Rekognition, AWS Lambda, and Amazon S3) while minimizing disruption to the existing MAM solution and its workflow for extracting videos from the tape library. This approach strikes a balance between leveraging AWS services for metadata enrichment, face recognition, and durable video storage while causing minimal disruption to the existing system and minimizing ongoing management overhead. extract videos from onprem tapes - push through file gateway to S3
  7. AzureDP900 👍 1
    A Using an on-premises file gateway appliance with AWS Storage Gateway has several advantages over using a tape gateway: Less administrative burden: Managing the file gateway appliance is still handled by AWS, reducing your administrative tasks. Easier to scale: With a file gateway, you can scale more easily to handle increasing amounts of video content. More flexible storage options: You can store videos in Amazon S3, which provides more flexibility and scalability compared to tape storage.
  8. AloraCloud 👍 1
    You can use Tape Gateway to archive data you need to preserve at another offsite location for disaster recovery or regulatory compliance needs. Tape Gateway enables you to replace magnetic tape libraries and physical tapes with AWS Cloud storage for long-term storage retention needs.
  9. SIJUTHOMASP 👍 1 Answered A
    Since the need is "move the MAM solution video content directly from its current file system.", they want the files from tape to another storage which can be S3. Hence the solution would be A.
  10. albert_kuo 👍 1 Answered A
    Because of the company wants to enrich the metadata for these videos in an automated fashion and put them into a searchable catalog by using a MAM feature, so exclude B
  11. c22ddd8 👍 1 Answered A
    https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/file-interface-to-aws-storage-gateway/
  12. bdloko 👍 1 Answered A
    How do people come-up with such scenarios?
  13. mifune 👍 5 Answered B
    B - Tape Gateway

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