S3 (Simple Storage Service) is used to store objects and flat files in 'buckets' in the Cloud.

There is unlimited storage available, across 100 buckets, and files can be from 0 bytes to 5TB.

Use Cases
How Data is Stored
Storage Class Options
Security
Encryption
Versioning
Replication
Getting started with Free Tier

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Use cases

S3 is one of the oldest services AWS offers and is incredibly flexible with multiple ways to use it.

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Analytics / Data Lake

• Uncouple storage and compute to scale either up or down as needed using Amazon Athena as the query service over the top and AWS Glue as a data catalogue.

Archive

• When data goes from 'hot', frequently accessed, to 'cold', infrequently accessed, it can be moved to Amazon Glacier for a more cost-effective option.

Data Staging

• Temporary data storage before being loading into AWS Redshift.

Static website

• Host a website using S3 for storage and Route 53 as the DNS.

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How data is stored

Each bucket needs a unique name and is formatted as:

https://s3-(region).amazonaws.com/(bucketname)

Each object consists of:

• Key (the name of the object),
• Value (the data in the file itself made of bytes),
• VersionID,
• Metadata

Amazon S3 provides read after write consistently and eventual consistency for updates and deletes. This is because data is being replicated across multiple data centres and may take time to flow through.

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Storage Class Options

S3

• The most expensive but most durable and reliable option for 'hot' data.
• Cloud apps, big data analytics, websites, content distribution.

S3:Infrequent Access

• For storing non-critical data that CANNOT be easily reproduced and needs to be retrieved quickly.
• Disaster recovery, backups.

S3:Infrequent Access - One Zone

• For storing non-critical data that CANNOT be easily reproduced and needs to be retrieved quickly.
• Secondary backups as this is only stored in one zone.

Reduced Redundancy Storage

• For storing non-critical data that can be easily reproduced.
• (No longer listed on the Storage Classes table

Glacier

• For long-term storage with a 3 - 5 hour retrieval time for 'cold' data.

Deep Glacier (NEW)

• For long-term storage with a 12 hour retrieval time for 'cold' data.
• Documents that need to be kept for compliance reasons for 7+ years.

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Security

S3 is secure by default. Each new bucket and the objects in it are private. To keep objects even more secure use bucket policies, similar to IAM policies.

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Encryption

Client Side

• Data is encrypted by the client and uploaded to S3 already encrypted.

Server Side

• Encrypts as the data is written and decrypts when it is being used.

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Versioning

• Versioning allows for older copies of a file to be seen, and “deleted” files to be restored.

• Deleted files have a delete tag added which hides the file. To restore the file, delete the tag.

• Each version takes up storage space, so a 1GB file edited 3 times with versioning on takes up 3GB of space.

• Once turned on versioning can only be suspended, not removed.

• Versions that are deleted on the other hand are actually deleted. Enabling Versioning MFA Delete gives extra protection as it requires MFA before a version can be deleted.

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Replication

• Cross-Region Replication lets you automatically replicate the contents of a bucket from one region to another.

• Existing files won’t be copied until there’s been a new version, which will also replicate all previous versions and permissions.

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Getting started

To get started with S3, the Free Tier offers 12 months of free storage. If you exceed the limits the standard rates apply.

5 GB of Standard Storage
20,000 Get Requests
2,000 Put Requests

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Useful Links

S3 Documentation

S3 FAQ

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Read more

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