Amazon S3

Amazon S3

S3 Use cases

Backup and storage
Disaster Recovery
Archive
Hybrid Cloud storage
Application hosting
Media hosting
Data lakes & big data analytics
Software delivery
Static website

Amazon S3 Overview - Buckets

Amazon S3 allows people to store objects (files) in “buckets” (directories)
Buckets must have a globally unique name (across all regions all accounts)
Buckets are defined at the region level
S3 looks like a global service but buckets are created in a region
Naming convention
- No uppercase
- No underscore
- 3-63 characters long
- Not an IP
- Must start with lowercase letter or number

Amazon S3 Overview - Objects

Objects (files) have a Key
The key is the FULL path:
- s3://my-bucket/my_file.txt
- s3://my-bucket/my_folder1/another_folder/my_file.txt
The key is composed of prefix + object name
- s3://my-bucket/my_folder1/another_folder/my_file.txt
There’s no concept of “directories” within buckets (although the UI will trick you to think otherwise)
Just keys with very long names that contain slashes (“/”)
Object values are the content of the body:
- Max Object Size is 5TB (5000GB)
- If uploading more than 5GB, must use “multi-part upload”
Metadata (list of text key / value pairs – system or user metadata)
- Tags (Unicode key / value pair – up to 10) – useful for security / lifecycle
- Version ID (if versioning is enabled)

S3 Security

User based
- IAM policies - which API calls should be allowed for a specific user from IAM console
Resource Based
- Bucket Policies - bucket wide rules from the S3 console - allows cross account
- Object Access Control List (ACL) – finer grain
- Bucket Access Control List (ACL) – less common
Note: an IAM principal can access an S3 object if
- the user IAM permissions allow it OR the resource policy ALLOWS it
- AND there’s no explicit DENY
Encryption: encrypt objects in Amazon S3 using encryption keys

S3 Bucket Policies

JSON based policies
- Resources: buckets and objects
- Actions: Set of API to Allow or Deny
- Effect: Allow / Deny Principal: The account or user to apply the policy to
Use S3 bucket for policy to:
- Grant public access to the bucket
- Force objects to be encrypted at upload
- Grant access to another account (Cross Account)

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "sid": "PublicRead",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": "*",
      "Action": [
        "s3:GetObject"
      ],
      "Resource": [
        "arn:aws:s3::examplebucket/*"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Bucket settings for Block Public Access

Block all public access: On
- Block public access to buckets and objects granted through new access control lists (ACLS): On
- Block public access to buckets and objects granted through any access control lists (ACLS): On
- Block public access to buckets and objects granted through new public bucket or access point policies: On
- Block public and cross-account access to buckets and objects through any public bucket or access point policies: On
These settings were created to prevent company data leaks
If you know your bucket should never be public, leave these on
Can be set at the account level

S3 Websites

S3 can host static websites and have them accessible on the www
The website URL will be:
bucket-name.s3-website-AWS-region.amazonaws.com OR
bucket-name.s3-website.AWS-region.amazonaws.com
If you get a 403 (Forbidden) error, make sure the bucket policy allows public reads!

S3 - Versioning

You can version your files in Amazon S3
It is enabled at the bucket level
Same key overwrite will increment the “version”: 1, 2, 3….
It is best practice to version your buckets
- Protect against unintended deletes (ability to restore a version)
- Easy roll back to previous version
Notes:
- Any file that is not versioned prior to enabling versioning will have version “null”
- Suspending versioning does not delete the previous versions

S3 Access Logs

For audit purpose, you may want to log all access to S3 buckets
Any request made to S3, from any account, authorized or denied, will be logged into another S3 bucket
That data can be analyzed using data analysis tools…
Very helpful to come down to the root cause of an issue, or audit usage, view suspicious patterns, etc…

S3 Replication (CRR & SRR)

Must enable versioning in source and destination
Cross Region Replication (CRR)
Same Region Replication (SRR)
Buckets can be in different accounts
Copying is asynchronous
Must give proper IAM permissions to S3
CRR - Use cases: compliance, lower latency access, replication across accounts
SRR – Use cases: log aggregation, live replication between production and test accounts

S3 Storage Classes

Amazon S3 Standard - General Purpose
Amazon S3 Standard - Infrequent Access (IA)
Amazon S3 One Zone - Infrequent Access
Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval
Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval
Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive
Amazon S3 Intelligent Tiering
Can move between classes manually or using S3 Lifecycle configurations

S3 Durability and Availability

Durability:
- High durability (99.999999999%, 11 9’s) of objects across multiple AZ
- If you store 10,000,000 objects with Amazon S3, you can on average expect to incur a loss of a single object once every 10,000 years
- Same for all storage classes
Availability:
- Measures how readily available a service is
- Varies depending on storage class
- Example: S3 standard has 99.99% availability = not available 53 minutes a year

S3 Standard General Purpose

99.99% Availability
Used for frequently accessed data
Low latency and high throughput
Sustain 2 concurrent facility failures
Use Cases: Big Data analytics, mobile & gaming applications, content distribution…

S3 Storage Classes - Infrequent Access

For data that is less frequently accessed, but requires rapid access when needed
Lower cost than S3 Standard

S3 Standard Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)

99.9% Availability
Use cases: Disaster Recovery, backups

S3 One Zone Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA)

High durability (99.999999999%) in a single AZ; data lost when AZ is destroyed
99.5% Availability
Use Cases: Storing secondary backup copies of on-premise data, or data you can recreate

Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes

Low-cost object storage meant for archiving / backup
Pricing: price for storage + object retrieval cost

Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval

Millisecond retrieval, great for data accessed once a quarter
Minimum storage duration of 90 days

Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval (formerly Amazon S3 Glacier)

Expedited (1 to 5 minutes), Standard (3 to 5 hours), Bulk (5 to 12 hours) – free
Minimum storage duration of 90 days

Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive - for long term storage

Standard (12 hours), Bulk (48 hours)
Minimum storage duration of 180 days

S3 Intelligent-Tiering

Small monthly monitoring and auto-tiering fee
Moves objects automatically between Access Tiers based on usage
There are no retrieval charges in S3 Intelligent-Tiering
Frequent Access tier (automatic): default tier
Infrequent Access tier (automatic): objects not accessed for 30 days
Archive Instant Access tier (automatic): objects not accessed for 90 days
Archive Access tier (optional): configurable from 90 days to 700+ days
Deep Archive Access tier (optional): config. from 180 days to 700+ days

S3 Object Lock & Glacier Vault Lock

S3 Object Lock
- Adopt a WORM (Write Once Read Many) model
- Block an object version deletion for a specified amount of time
Glacier Vault Lock
- Adopt a WORM (Write Once Read Many) model
- Lock the policy for future edits (can no longer be changed)
- Helpful for compliance and data retention

Shared Responsibility Model for S3

AWS	YOU
Infrastructure (global security, durability, availability, sustain concurrent loss of data in two facilities)	S3 Versioning, S3 Bucket Policies, S3 Replication Setup
Configuration and vulnerability analysis	Logging and Monitoring, S3 Storage Classes
Compliance validation	Data encryption at rest and in transit

AWS Snow Family

Highly-secure, portable devices to collect and process data at the edge, and migrate data into and out of AWS
Data migration:
- Snowcone
- Snowball Edge
- Snowmobile
Edge computing:
- Snowcone
- Snowball Edge

Data Migrations with AWS Snow Family

AWS Snow Family: offline devices to perform data migrations If it takes more than a week to transfer over the network, use Snowball devices!
Challenges:
- Limited connectivity
- Limited bandwidth
- High network cost
- Shared bandwidth (can’t maximize the line)
- Connection stability

Time to Transfer

Data	100 Mbps	1Gbps	10Gbps
10 TB	12 days	30 hours	3 hours
100 TB	124 days	12 days	30 hours
1 PB	3 years	124 days	12 days

Snowball Edge (for data transfers)

Physical data transport solution: move TBs or PBs of data in or out of AWS
Alternative to moving data over the network (and paying network fees)
Pay per data transfer job
Provide block storage and Amazon S3-compatible object storage
Snowball Edge Storage Optimized
- 80 TB of HDD capacity for block volume and S3 compatible object storage
Snowball Edge Compute Optimized
- 42 TB of HDD capacity for block volume and S3 compatible object storage
Use cases: large data cloud migrations, DC decommission, disaster recovery

AWS Snowcone

Small, portable computing, anywhere, rugged & secure, withstands harsh environments
Light (4.5 pounds, 2.1 kg)
Device used for edge computing, storage, and data transfer
8 TBs of usable storage
Use Snowcone where Snowball does not fit (space-constrained environment)
Must provide your own battery / cables
Can be sent back to AWS offline, or connect it to internet and use AWS DataSync to send data

AWS Snowmobile

Transfer exabytes of data (1 EB = 1,000 PB = 1,000,000 TBs)
Each Snowmobile has 100 PB of capacity (use multiple in parallel)
High security: temperature controlled, GPS, 24/7 video surveillance
Better than Snowball if you transfer more than 10 PB

Properties	Snowcone	Snowball Edge Storage Optimized	Snowmobile
Storage Capacity	8 TB usable	80 TB usable	< 100 PB
Migration Size	Up to 24 TB, online and offline	Up to petabytes, offline	Up to exabytes, offline

Snow Family - Usage Process

Request Snowball devices from the AWS console for delivery
Install the snowball client / AWS OpsHub on your servers
Connect the snowball to your servers and copy files using the client
Ship back the device when you’re done (goes to the right AWS facility)
Data will be loaded into an S3 bucket
Snowball is completely wiped

What is Edge Computing?

Process data while it’s being created on an edge location
- A truck on the road, a ship on the sea, a mining station underground…
These locations may have
- Limited / no internet access
- Limited / no easy access to computing power
We setup a Snowball Edge / Snowcone device to do edge computing
Use cases of Edge Computing:
- Preprocess data
- Machine learning at the edge
- Transcoding media streams
Eventually (if need be) we can ship back the device to AWS (for transferring data for example)

Snow Family - Edge Computing

Snowcone (smaller)
- 2 CPUs, 4 GB of memory, wired or wireless access
- USB-C power using a cord or the optional battery
Snowball Edge – Compute Optimized
- 52 vCPUs, 208 GiB of RAM
- Optional GPU (useful for video processing or machine learning)
- 42 TB usable storage
Snowball Edge – Storage Optimized
- Up to 40 vCPUs, 80 GiB of RAM
- Object storage clustering available
All: Can run EC2 Instances & AWS Lambda functions (using AWS IoT Greengrass)
Long-term deployment options: 1 and 3 years discounted pricing

AWS OpsHub

Historically, to use Snow Family devices, you needed a CLI (Command Line Interface tool)
Today, you can use AWS OpsHub (a software you install on your computer / laptop) to manage your Snow Family Device
- Unlocking and configuring single or clustered devices
- Transferring files
- Launching and managing instances running on Snow Family Devices
- Monitor device metrics (storage capacity, active instances on your device)
- Launch compatible AWS services on your devices (ex: Amazon EC2 instances, AWS DataSync, Network File System (NFS))

Hybrid Cloud for Storage

AWS is pushing for ”hybrid cloud”
- Part of your infrastructure is on-premises
- Part of your infrastructure is on the cloud
This can be due to
- Long cloud migrations
- Security requirements
- Compliance requirements
- IT strategy
S3 is a proprietary storage technology (unlike EFS / NFS), so how do you expose the S3 data on-premise?
AWS Storage Gateway!

AWS Storage Gateway

Bridge between on-premise data and cloud data in S3
Hybrid storage service to allow on- premises to seamlessly use the AWS Cloud
Use cases: disaster recovery, backup & restore, tiered storage
Types of Storage Gateway:
- File Gateway
- Volume Gateway
- Tape Gateway
No need to know the types at the exam

Amazon S3 - Summary

Buckets vs Objects: global unique name, tied to a region
S3 security: IAM policy, S3 Bucket Policy (public access), S3 Encryption
S3 Websites: host a static website on Amazon S3
S3 Versioning: multiple versions for files, prevent accidental deletes
S3 Access Logs: log requests made within your S3 bucket
S3 Replication: same-region or cross-region, must enable versioning
S3 Storage Classes: Standard, IA, 1Z-IA, Intelligent, Glacier, Glacier Deep Archive
S3 Lifecycle Rules: transition objects between classes
S3 Glacier Vault Lock / S3 Object Lock: WORM (Write Once Read Many)
Snow Family: import data onto S3 through a physical device, edge computing
OpsHub: desktop application to manage Snow Family devices
Storage Gateway: hybrid solution to extend on-premises storage to S3

Elastic Load Balancing & Auto Scaling Groups List Databases & Analytics

Download PDF : AWS Cloud Practitioner Study Notes (PDF)