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Amazon S3 Essentials
Amazon S3 Essentials

Amazon S3 Essentials: Get started with Amazon S3 for virtually unlimited cloud and Internet storage

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Amazon S3 Essentials

Chapter 1. Know-How about S3

The Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an online object storage. It can be used to store and get any data via the following:

  • REST web service interface
  • SOAP web service interface
  • BitTorrent

Amazon S3 is easy to configure, and is a reliable and scalable storage that stores files (objects) at a nominal pricing along with high security. Neither the developers nor the system team have to worry about the data that is stored at or retrieved from Amazon S3. Amazon S3 manages the Web-Scale computing by itself.

The following concepts will be covered in this chapter:

  • The need for S3 and its advantages
  • Basic concepts of Amazon S3
  • Features of Amazon S3
  • Security
  • Integration
  • Use cases

The need for S3 and its advantages

Amazon S3 can be used for storing data for application usage as well as for backing up and archiving the data. It doesn't bind the files to be stored. We can store any file, which are treated as objects, in Amazon S3. Amazon uses S3 to run its own global network of websites (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/Welcome.html).

We can store as much data as we want in Amazon S3; it doesn't restrict a user from storing any. Amazon charges the user for the storage that is actually used. So, it is quite inexpensive for the user, because he/she doesn't need to purchase storage externally.

Amazon S3 keeps the redundant data across multiple data centers for high scalability. The user can select the region where his/her data will be stored. This reduces the latency in storing and retrieving the data. Amazon S3 also offers security on the objects. The user can make the object publicly or privately accessible. We can also store encrypted data in Amazon S3, and it guarantees a server uptime of 99.9 percent.

Amazon S3 can be integrated with any application or services offered by Amazon, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic Block Storage (Amazon EBS), Amazon Glacier, and so on.

Subscribing to Amazon S3 is free, and you just need to pay for the bandwidth that you use and for whatever you are actually hosting. Small start-ups usually don't have an infrastructure to store their huge amount data. So, they opt for Amazon S3 to store their images, videos, files, and so on to minimize the costs.

Amazon S3 also provides website hosting services. You can directly upload your pages in Amazon S3, and map it to your domain.

Basic concepts of Amazon S3

Let's take a look at the basic S3 concepts:

Buckets

A bucket is a container in Amazon S3 where the files are uploaded. For using Amazon S3 to store a file, you need to create at least one bucket. Files (objects) are stored in buckets.

The following are a few features of buckets:

  • The bucket name should be unique because it is shared by all users.
  • Buckets can contain logical nested folders and subfolders. But it cannot contain nested buckets.
  • You can create a maximum of 100 buckets in a single account.
  • The bucket name can contain letters, numbers, periods, dash, and the underscore.
  • The bucket name should start with a letter or number, and it should be between 3 to 25 characters long.

Buckets can be managed via the following:

  • REST-style HTTP interface
  • SOAP interface

The following bucket looks similar to the Amazon S3 bucket to which we will upload files (objects):

Buckets

A bucket doesn't have any size restrictions for the user. It can store objects of any size.

Buckets can be accessed via HTTP URLs as follows:

  • http://< BUCKET_NAME>.s3.amazonaws.com/< OBJECT_NAME >
  • http://s3.amazonaws.com/< BUCKET_NAME >/< OBJECT_NAME >

In the preceding URLs, BUCKET_NAME will be the name of the bucket that you provided while creating it. And OBJECT_NAME will be the name of the object that you provided while creating the object.

Objects

An object is a stored file in Amazon S3. Each object consists of a unique identifier, the user who uploaded the object, and permissions for other users to perform CRUD operations on it. Every object is stored in a bucket.

Objects can be managed via the following:

  • REST-style HTTP interface
  • SOAP interface

Objects can be downloaded via the following:

  • HTTP GET interface
  • BitTorrent protocol

The bucket can consist of any type of object, be it a PDF, text, video, audio, or any other kind of files.

Objects

Keys

While creating an object, a key will be assigned to the object. This key will be used for retrieving the object. The key should have the following features:

  • Be unique in the bucket
  • Contain alphabets, numbers, and special characters such as-, !, _, ., *, ', (, and )

Features of Amazon S3

The following are the main features of Amazon S3:

  • Allows website hosting: Amazon S3 allows users to host a website and map it to their domain. This is very cost effective, because the user pays only for what he/she uses. Moreover, the user doesn't require highly configured servers to serve the website.
  • Scalable: Amazon S3 doesn't restrict the user to any size limit for storing data. As it is a pay-as-you-go service, it stores the data, and the bill is generated accordingly. So the subscriber never faces a lack of space.
  • Reliable: Amazon S3 guarantees a server uptime of 99.9 percent. Therefore, the subscriber does not need to worry about data reliability.
  • Security: Amazon S3 provides a strong authentication mechanism where the stored data can be manipulated.
  • Standard interfaces: Amazon S3 provides the Representational State Transfer (REST) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) web services that can be consumed by any web framework.
  • Reduced Redundancy Storage: Amazon S3 provides the subscribers with an optional feature for storing data with the Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS) storage class. It is basically used for storing non-critical and reproducible data at lower levels of redundancy. The cost of storing on an RRS storage class is quite less as compared to the standard storage class.
  • Torrent tracking and seeding: Amazon S3 can act as a torrent tracker, and seed the files from your machine.
  • Share the data with a temporary URL: Amazon S3 provides the subscriber the ability to share a URL, which auto-expires after a period of time. This helps the subscriber in sharing the data for a minimal period of time. Other users cannot use that data after the URL expires.
  • Logging: It provides the logging of all activities that are performed on bucket. This makes it easy for the subscriber to audit the activities on the bucket if he so wishes. Generally, when a subscriber hosts a website on Amazon S3, he enables the logging feature to track the activities.
  • Versioning: Amazon S3 allows storing of multiple versions of an object. It is basically used for recovering old data that is lost unintentionally.
  • Security: Amazon S3 provides security on buckets and objects. While creating the buckets, you can provide access control lists for other users of the bucket who can create, update, delete, or list objects. You can even set the geographical location of your data.
  • Integration: Amazon S3 can be integrated with several other services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, Amazon Glacier, and many other applications. Generally, developers use Amazon S3 for storing images, videos, or documents, and for accessing them via HTTP Get.

Case studies

The Amazon S3 can be utilized for different purposes:

  • File hosting: Companies often deploy their images, videos, audios, PDFs, DOCs, and other files in Amazon S3. This helps in loading the files directly from Amazon S3 without managing the on-premise infrastructure.
  • Storing data on mobile-based applications: Many users/companies go for Amazon S3 to store mobile app data. This becomes easy for user/companies to manage mobile user data over Amazon S3.
  • Static website hosting: Users can host their static website over Amazon S3 along with Amazon Route53.
  • Video Hosting: Companies upload their videos over Amazon S3, which can then be accessed on their website. Amazon S3 can also be configured to provide video streaming.
  • Backup: Users can keep a backup of their data, which will be securely and reliably stored in Amazon S3. Amazon S3 can also be configured to move the old data over to Amazon Glacier for archiving, as the Glacier costs less as compared to S3.

Use cases

Let's now see how Amazon S3 can be used in a project.

Use cases

In the preceding diagram we have the following:

  • The Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) machines where the application is deployed.
  • The Amazon Load Balancer will be responsible for redirecting the user request to specific applications deployed on the EC2 machines.
  • The Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is used for storing application data. It provides scalability, durability, and an easy-to-manage database service.
  • Amazon S3 where the image/audio/video files are stored.
  • And lastly, the front devices like a laptop, desktop, or mobile applications that send requests to the application.

The preceding example is a sample case study. There are various ways for integrating Amazon S3 in our application.

Summary

In this chapter, we introduced Amazon S3, and covered the basic concepts—buckets, objects, and keys. We explored the basic features of Amazon S3, which help in providing a reliable storage service at minimal cost. Amazon S3 can be consumed by startups, individual developers, or big size companies for data storage, backups for recovery, and so on. Amazon S3 also provides an extensibility for integration with other Amazon services and many other applications. In the next chapter, you will learn how to utilize the AWS S3 basic services like buckets, folders, and objects.

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Key benefits

  • Familiarize yourself with the concepts of Amazon S3
  • Understand basic operations of bucket, folders, and objects using Amazon S3 SDK Java
  • Leverage the power of Amazon S3 to effectively store and retrieve data /

Description

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), provides developers and IT teams with secure, durable, and highly-scalable object storage. Amazon S3 is easy to use, with a simple web services interface to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web. S3 is automatically web scalable and responds to the requirements of your application and traffic, and therefore offers a key element to help companies deal dynamically with any spike in traffic for their application (such as a free e-book offer). This book starts with the basics of the Amazon S3 and its features, and you will quickly get an understanding how to use the Amazon Management Console for Amazon S3 which is the simplest way to manage Amazon S3. Next, we will cover basic operations on bucket, folder, objects. Once the basic operations are understood, you will know how to use Amazon S3 using Java SDK. Following that, you will learn about Copy Objects and Multipart copy objects for large objects size. You will also learn to manage the life cycle of bucket and how to share resources to the different domain by configuring CORS. The book will then guide you through the development and deployment of a static website on Amazon S3 using different services of Amazon. By the end of the book, you will be able to create a scalable application using Amazon S3.

Who is this book for?

This book is intended for System Engineers/ Developers, Software Architects, Project managers, and users who want to explore Amazon S3 SDK Java. If you want to learn about Amazon S3 quickly, then this book is for you. Basic knowledge of Java programming is expected.

What you will learn

  • Start with the basic concepts of Amazon S3 to get you going
  • Use Copy Object and Multipart Copy Object for objects of different sizes
  • Understand how to use the amazon management console for Amazon S3
  • Learn how to use the AWS SDK of Java and consume the Amazon S3
  • Get to grips with managing the bucket life cycle
  • Configure CORS to share resources to a different domain
  • Discover how to develop and deploy the static website on Amazon S3 using different services of Amazon

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Publication date : Nov 03, 2015
Length: 112 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783554904
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Publication date : Nov 03, 2015
Length: 112 pages
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ISBN-13 : 9781783554904
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Table of Contents

6 Chapters
1. Know-How about S3 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. S3 using the AWS Management Console Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. S3 using AWS SDK – Java (Part 1) Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. S3 using AWS SDK – Java (Part 2) Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Deploying a Website on S3 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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(2 Ratings)
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1 star 50%
Ian Stirk Jun 23, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Hi,I have written a detailed chapter-by-chapter review of this book on www DOT i-programmer DOT info, the first and last parts of this review are given here. For my review of all chapters, search i-programmer DOT info for STIRK together with the book's title.As the technology world increasingly migrates to the cloud, knowledge of Amazon Simple Storage Service should prove useful. Does this book help?Aimed at developers and architects, it has around 90 working pages, split over 5 chapters. Some basic knowledge of Java (or similar) is required to understand the example code.Below is a chapter-by-chapter exploration of the topics covered.Chapter 1 Know-How about S3The book opens by describing Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) as online object storage, accessible via REST and SOAP web service interfaces, and BitTorrent. The various advantages of S3 are discussed (e.g. backup, archive, huge storage, highly scalable, elastic pricing, and security).The chapter then discusses some basic concepts that are used throughout the book. A bucket is a container where files (objects) are uploaded. Buckets can contain nested folders and subfolders. An object is a stored file. A key is assigned when an object is created, and used to retrieve the object.Next, a useful list of S3 functionality is given, including: *Allows website hosting – pay for what use (useful for start-ups) *Scalability – ‘unlimited’ storage *Reliability – guarantees 99.9% uptime *Security – strong authentication mechanism *Standard interfaces – access via REST and SOAPThe chapter ends with a brief look at some different ways S3 can be used, including: file hosting, website hosting, and data backup. A useful diagram shows how S3 integrates with other Amazon components (e.g. Elastic Cloud Compute [EC2]) for a more complete picture.This chapter provides a useful overview of what S3 is, its basic components, and its advantages.The chapter is easy to read, with helpful diagrams and step-by-step walkthroughs (in later chapters). These traits apply to the whole of the book....ConclusionThis book aims to teach you about Amazon S3 quickly, and certainly succeeds. The book is very easy to read, with plenty of screenshots to support the many step-by-step walkthroughs. There are useful explanations of what S3 is, and how to use it (via the management console and programmatically). As cloud computing becomes increasingly popular, knowledge of S3 should be ever more useful.I have two concerns. Firstly, the code should be commented and discussed (that said, it is not too difficult to understand). Secondly, the subject matter seems to be too isolated, I would have liked more discussion on its integration with the other Amazon technologies such as EC2.It should be noted that Amazon Web Services also provide some very readable S3 tutorials. If you want to know what S3 is, its advantages, and how to use it follow this link to a helpful tutorial: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/gsg/GetStartedWithS3.html.
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ollyoechsle Apr 27, 2019
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This is a chapter, not a book. You can a better introduction to S3 online.I buy technical books because of the space they offer for thoughts and insightful comments included by authors with experience. This book has none of that. Instead the author needlessly enumerates tedious lists like availability zones (likely outdated), numerous screenshots of the AWS interface, and repetitive, complete Java code listings (including imports) seemingly in an effort to make it to 91 pages. It's a half-hour read.Various options are covered without any explanation of why they're important, examples of who would use them, or indeed any explanation of how or why concepts differ under the S3 paradigm. For example, there is a listing to describe how to create a folder, with no mention that "folders" are not a primary concept in S3. This has some important consequences which should have been included.You'll get more detail from the S3 docs themselves, not to mention other online resources.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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