Secure, Scalable Data Storage with Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a scalable, highly available, and secure object storage service to store, collect, and protect your copious amounts of data. S3 comes with intuitive management features that allow users to configure their unique security, compliance, and storage management needs. It’s a one-stop-shop where users can query and report on their data using SQL and available APIs, eliminating the need for a separate analytics platform. With S3, developers and IT Specialists can build scalable backup and restore solutions while protecting their data from natural disasters or system failures. On top of all that, it’s affordable! There are so many features and benefits that S3 can provide for your business’ data, we’ll only scratch the service in this post.

Features Available in Amazon S3

There are several awesome features available in S3 that Amazon highlights:

• Storage Lens – Provides visibility into your storage usage, activity, and suggests cost-saving and data protection recommendations. It allows users to drill down to view insights at the account or bucket level (e.g., file folders with data and descriptive metadata) using an interactive dashboard.

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• Intelligent Tiering – Keeps costs down by automatically moving objects to different buckets based on the frequency that the objects are accessed.

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• Access Points – S3 Access Points make it easy to manage data access for applications that share the same data sets in S3 by setting specific permissions and network controls.

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• Batch Operations – Easily manage any number of objects in the S3 Management Console or via available API requests. You setup the job and associated parameters as you see fit. 

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• Block Public Access – Lock down public access to your data at the AWS level, all the way down to individual buckets.

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How Much Does It Cost?

There is no minimum/flat fee for using S3, as everyone’s data needs vary. This is why Amazon S3 only charges you for what you use. Amazon offers an AWS Pricing Calculator to help estimate your monthly costs which is billed at the end of the month.  Amazon breaks down their S3 pricing based on four cost components. They even offer a free tier, as well as options for free trials for extended service offerings. Prices vary depending on which S3 Region you choose. Amazon charges its customers less in locations where their costs are less. For example, costs are lower on the East Coast than the West Coast.

S3 Benefits

More and more companies are moving to the cloud for all of their hosting and storage needs. It’s the place to be for flexibility, availability, scalability, and performance as S3 can easily scale and descale to fit your business’ specific data needs. Plus, it’s easy to use!

• Do you have large amounts of data that you need to retain and store?
• Do you have a growing data set that needs to continue to scale with your business?
• Do you need secure, encrypted data that is still easy to upload and download?

Your business could benefit from Amazon S3 if you answered, “yes” to any of these questions. If you’re interested in learning more about how cloud storage options can support your business’ data, call us to schedule a consultation.