Day 50: Amazon S3 Demystified – The Backbone of Cloud Storage
Shaharyar Shakir
📦 What is Amazon S3?
Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is object-based storage that allows you to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web, at any time.
It’s the backbone of cloud storage for many applications—whether you're hosting static websites, storing logs, or managing backups.
🧱 Key Features of S3
✅ Object-based storage (not block or file-based)
✅ Unlimited capacity
✅ High availability & durability
✅ Replicates data across multiple facilities (except One Zone-IA)
✅ Bucket-level storage structure
⚠️ Each bucket name must be globally unique.
📂 Buckets & Objects
Bucket: A top-level storage container in S3
Object: The actual file/data stored inside a bucket
Each object is stored with metadata and a unique identifier
🗃️ S3 Storage Classes
| Class | Use Case | Features |
| S3 Standard | Frequently accessed data | Multi-AZ, low latency |
| S3 Infrequent Access (IA) | Long-lived, rarely accessed | Cheaper, multi-AZ |
| S3 One Zone-IA | Rarely accessed, non-critical | Stored in a single AZ |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | Dynamic workloads | Auto tiering for cost efficiency |
| S3 Glacier | Archival storage | Retrieval in minutes to hours |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | Long-term cold storage | Retrieval in ~12 hours |
🔄 Lifecycle Policies
You can set rules to automatically transition data between storage classes or delete it after a specific time:
✅ Move from S3 Standard → IA → Glacier
✅ Auto-delete old logs or backups
This helps optimize costs and storage hygiene.
💰 S3 Pricing
You're charged for:
🧱 Storage used
📥 PUT/GET/DELETE requests
⬆️ Data transfer
🌍 Cross-region replication
🗂️ Storage class tier
🔍 Example:
Keeping logs in S3 Standard is expensive. Instead, move to S3 IA or Glacier using lifecycle rules to save money 💸
🔚 Summary
Amazon S3 is more than just a place to store files — it’s a powerful, cost-effective, and scalable storage backbone used in nearly every cloud-native and enterprise architecture.
Today’s hands-on practice clarified how each storage class works and how important lifecycle management is for controlling cost.
⏭️ Up Next:
I’ll dive deeper into S3 bucket policies, versioning, and how to host a website in it with IAM & ACLs and cloudfront.
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