Amazon S3 – Simple Storage Service provided by amazon. As term defines, its a storage server which functions just like a ftp server with extra features like accessing the files via web browser and for distribution via amazon cloudfront.
Basically we can use S3 for the following purposes.
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As a backup server
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For accessing files publicly
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Storing files for supporting scaling and load balancing.
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For distributing files via cloudfront
First of all you have to register for a S3 account. Register
Once you have completed the registration, you have to create a “bucket” in S3 for storing your files. Don't get worried about the term “bucket”. Its a term used by amazon for indicating the root folders of your account. It also represents the subdomain names of s3.amazonaws.com. For example, if you create a bucket named “server1”, you will get a subdomain server1.s3.amazonaws.com. You won't be able to create a bucket, if the name is already used by someone else.
How would you access a FTP server ? How would you transfer the files to and from FTP ? Using any FTP client software, you can access and transfer files. Similarly, you would require any S3 client or tools for accessing the S3. Other than amazon S3 interface, there are plenty of tools available now. I mainly use
S3Fox – Firefox plugin, much easier to use for transferring files from personal computer.
S3cmd – Command Line tool used for uploading backups from servers.
(We will discuss about S3Fox and S3cmd in later posts)
S3 Pricing:
- Pay for only for what you use.
- There is no minimum fee.
- All data transfered in and out is charged
- All requests (PUT, GET, POST, LIST) is charged
Warning: If your bandwidth consumption and data storage in S3 is huge, pricing might be higher compared to other datacenters which provides unlimited bandwidth.
Next -> S3 as a backup server
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