The Amazon S3 or Amazon Simple Storage Service is offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is online object storage. It is used to get and store any data via REST web service interface, BitTorrent and SOAP web service interface. In this blog, you wil know What is AWS S3: Overview and Features.
It is easy to configure the Amazon S3, and it is scalable and reliable storage that stores objects (files) at nominal pricing and top-notch security. Neither the system team nor the developers have to worry about the data that is stored at or retrieved from AWS S3. In addition, Amazon S3 itself manages Web-scale computing.
Need & advantages of Amazon S3
AWS S3 stores tons of data for application usage and to back up and archive the data. It does not bind the stored files, and you can store any files treated as objects in AWS S3. In addition, Amazon utilizes S3 to run its global network of websites.
Users can store as much data as required in Amazon S3, which is used at both individual and organizational levels. For the storage used, Amazon charges a nominal fee and saves users from having to purchase external storage. If you are using macOS and need to manage and store a large amount of data, you can download the S3 browser for Mac. Additionally, you can employ tools like ForkLife, an AWS S3 client for macOS, to streamline your workflows.
AWS S3 keeps the redundant data across several data centers for high scalability, and users can select the region where their data will be stored. Thus, it helps to reduce the latency in data storage and retrieval. Furthermore, users can make objects accessible privately or publicly. You can even encrypt sensitive data and enjoy a server uptime of 99.9%.
The Amazon S3 can be integrated easily with any services or apps offered by Amazon, such as Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2, Amazon Glacier, etc. While you can subscribe to AWS S3 for free, you need to pay for the bandwidth that you’ll use and for whatever you are hosting. Typically, small businesses don’t have the infrastructure for huge amounts of data storage and opting for S3 makes it easier to store videos, images, files and more at a minimal cost.
Moreover, users can enjoy website hosting services to directly upload their pages in Amazon S3 and map it to their domain.
The main features of Amazon S3
- Highly scalable: Users of AWS S3 are not restricted to any size limit for storing data. It is a pay-as-you-go service, and the bill is generated according to the amount of data stored. So, you’ll never face a lack of space.
- Website hosting: AWS S3 allows users to host their website and map it to their domain at nominal costs. Users only have to pay for what they use and don’t need high-end configured servers to serve their website.
- Trustworthy and reliable: A server uptime of 99.9% is guaranteed, and hence, you don’t have to worry about data reliability.
- Highly secure: A strong authentication mechanism is provided by Amazon S3, where the stored data cannot be manipulated.
- Reduced redundancy storage: Subscribers of Amazon S3 are provided with an optional storage feature for storing their data with the RRS or Reduced Redundancy Storage class. It is used for storing reproducible and non-critical data at lower levels of redundancy. Compared to the standard storage class, the cost of storing on an RRS storage class is less.
- Standard interfaces: AWS S3 offers the REST or Representational State Transfer and SOAP or Simple Object Access Protocol web services easily consumed by any web framework.
- Sharing data with a temporary URL: Subscribers can share a URL, which expires automatically after a period. It helps subscribers share sensitive data for a limited time, and other users cannot access the data after the expiration of the URL.
- Logging: All the activities performed on the bucket can be logged so that subscribers can audit their activities when they wish. The logging feature allows users to track the activities.
- Versioning: Amazon S3 enables storage of multiple versions of an object, and users can use them to recover data that was lost unintentionally.
- Security: Security on objects and buckets are provided by AWS S3. When you’re creating the buckets, you can offer access control lists for other users of the bucket who will be capable of creating, updating, listing or deleting objects. The geographical location of your data can even be set up.
- Integration: You can integrate Amazon S3 with other services like Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2 and other applications.
So, use Amazon S3 if you need to store a large amount of data and never want to run out of space.
