Which AWS service is ideal for long-term data storage and archiving?

Amazon Glacier is specifically designed for long-term data storage and archiving. It offers a low-cost solution for storing data that is infrequently accessed, making it suitable for scenarios such as data backups, compliance, and other archival needs. Glacier is optimized for durability and can retain data over long periods, with features such as lifecycle policies that allow you to automatically transfer things stored in Amazon S3 to Glacier for lower-cost storage options.

While other services like Amazon S3 provide object storage suitable for a wider range of use cases, including active data storage and retrieval, Glacier excels in terms of cost-effectiveness for data that doesn’t need to be accessed frequently. Amazon EBS is focused on providing block storage for use with EC2 instances, and Amazon RDS is a managed database service, which makes them unsuitable for long-term archival purposes.