What is AWS S3 Storage?
Applications that store data in S3 either independently or in conjunction with other Amazon Web Services (AWS) database, storage, and compute services are supported by AWS backup for centralized backup and restore. For S3 backups, various capabilities are provided, including Backup Audit Manager.
It comes as no surprise that AWS provides scalable, dependable, and affordable cloud infrastructure to more than 190 countries, given that it holds more than 32% of the global public cloud market share. Amazon S3 is among its most potent and widely utilized storage solutions.
Amazon Simple Storage Service, AKA Amazon S3, is an object storage service offering industry-leading speed, security, data availability and scalability provided by the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).
Any amount of data can be stored and protected using Amazon S3 for various use cases, including data lakes, websites, mobile applications, backup and restore, archives, enterprise applications, IoT devices, and big data analytics.
Customers of all sizes and industries are eligible to use Amazon S3. You may optimize, organize, and configure access to your data using the management options offered by Amazon S3 to satisfy your unique business, organizational, and compliance needs.
Also Read: What is a Private Cloud, And Why Would I Need One?
What are AWS S3 Backup Features?
Given further are the important AW S3 features useful for backups
- Object Versioning
Using versioning in Amazon S3 can retain several versions of the same object in the same bucket. Every version of each object saved in your buckets may be preserved, retrieved, and restored using the S3 Versioning feature.
Versioning makes it easier to recover from errors in applications as well as from unintentional user actions. If numerous write requests are made simultaneously for the same object when versioning is enabled for a bucket, Amazon S3 stores all of those objects.
Data archiving serves to safeguard information not only from external risks like disaster scenarios but also from human error. With object versioning, you can use GET requests to get earlier versions of an object.
When versioning is enabled, Amazon S3 tags the item with a deletion marker rather than removing it when you delete it. Reduce storage costs for redundant versions by ensuring that S3 only keeps old versions for a brief period using lifecycle controls.
- Physical Redundancy
Within an AWS Availability Zone, Amazon S3, by default, keeps three copies of every file in data centers that are physically isolated. For further redundancy, you may set up data replication in multiple Availability Zones, but you’ll have to pay for the extra storage.
- Transfer Acceleration
With the use of Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, data uploads to Amazon S3 can be accelerated. Once acceleration is set, AWS will use its transfer channels to optimize and reroute data from your location to the required data centers.
AWS claims that upload speeds can increase by 50% to 500% depending on the situation when AWS is enabled because it optimizes and reroutes traffic to the appropriate data centers using AWS transfer channels. Before using Amazon S3 Transfer Acceleration, you should test your data transfer speed.
- Encryption
By default, AWS encrypts all data on S3 storage. But what if someone steals the keys to your management panel and has access to the items in your storage bins? Amazon S3 offers the ability to encrypt your data using the security key of your choice to stop that from happening.
AWS automatically encrypts all S3 storage data. You can define the decryption keys used for increased security.
- Object Lock
You can secure objects using a write-once-read-many (WORM) policy using S3 Object Lock. Objects can be shielded against deletion and overwriting indefinitely or for a predetermined amount of time.
Additionally, Object Lock can assist you in adhering to laws that need a WORM storage model. Object Lock is only available in versioned buckets. You have two options for controlling item retention with Object Lock:
Retention intervals: You designate a set amount of time for the WORM protection.
Legal holds: WORM protection is applied to an object indefinitely unless it is explicitly removed.
Each object version is subject to retention policies and legal holds. This won’t stop the development of new versions of the same object or extend protection to other versions; instead, you must apply these protections specifically to each object version.
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Amazon S3 Storage Classes
The area in which a bucket is distributed is specified by the user when the bucket is created. The user will choose the type of S3 storage class to be utilized for those specific objects later when files are uploaded to the bucket. Users can then define bucket features like bucket policy, lifecycle policies, version control, etc., after that.
Here are the various storage classes using a school as an example:
Frequent data access for Amazon S3 Standard: Appropriate for a use case where the latency should be below. Example: Student attendance information will often be requested and needs to be retrieved fast.
Infrequent data access for Amazon S3 Standard: Can be used in cases where the data is persistent and rarely accessed. Example: While student academic records may not be required on a daily basis, they should be easily accessible if necessary.
Amazon S3 Glacier: Can be utilized when great performance is not necessary, but the data needs to be stored. Example: Even if old records of ex-students (such as entrance fees) are required regularly, minimal latency is unnecessary.
Zone-IA Storage Class One: It is applicable when data is stored in a single location and retrieved infrequently. For instance, a student’s report card is kept in a single availability region and is not used every day (i.e., school).
S3 Intelligent: Tiering is made to accommodate data with unpredictable or changing access requirements. Deep Archive, Archive, Infrequent Access (IA), and Frequent Access are the four access tiers available for this storage class. According to the customer’s access patterns, this class automatically moves data to the least expensive storage tier.
Storage with Amazon S3 Standard Reduced Redundancy: suitable for a use case where the data can be quickly and non-critically replicated. For instance, library books are not vital information and can be replaced if they are misplaced.
S3 Deep Glacier Archive: It is intended to support data that only needs to be accessed a few times annually.
Bottomline
S3 delivers an incredible selection of backup, encryption, and storage capabilities and also guarantees top-notch security. It is perfect for many applications, including data backup, software delivery, disaster recovery, etc.
