S3 Flashcards

1
Q

What is S3 ?

A

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a scalable cloud storage service for storing and retrieving data at any time, from anywhere on the web.

  • Amazon S3 is one of the main building blocks of AWS
  • It’s advertised as ”infinitely scaling” storage
  • Many websites use Amazon S3 as a backbone
  • Many AWS services use Amazon S3 as an integration as well
  • We’ll have a step-by-step approach to S3
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2
Q

Which are Amazon S3 Use cases ?

A
  • Backup and storage
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Archive
  • Hybrid Cloud storage
  • Application hosting
  • Media hosting
  • Data lakes & big data analytics
  • Software delivery
  • Static website
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3
Q

Whate are Amazon S3 - Buckets ?

A

An S3 bucket is a public cloud storage resource available in Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), where you can upload, store, and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.

  • 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
    • Must NOT start with the prefix xn–
    • Must NOT end with the suffix -s3alias
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4
Q

What are Objects ?

A

In Amazon S3, an object is the fundamental entity for storage, consisting of file data and metadata, uniquely identified by a key and stored in a bucket.

  • 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)
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5
Q

What do you know about Amazon S3 – Security ?

A
  • User-Based
    • IAM Policies – which API calls should be allowed for a specific user from IAM
  • Resource-Based
    • Bucket Policies – bucket wide rules from the S3 console - allows cross account
    • Object Access Control List (ACL) – finer grain (can be disabled)
    • Bucket Access Control List (ACL) – less common (can be disabled)
  • 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
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6
Q

Which are the S3 Bucket Policies ?

A
  • JSON based policies
    • Resources: buckets and objects
    • Effect: Allow / Deny
    • Actions: Set of API to Allow or 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)
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7
Q

What do you know about Bucket settings for Block Public Access ?

A
  • 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
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8
Q

What do you know about Amazon S3 – Static Website Hosting ?

A
  • S3 can host static websites and have them accessible on
    the Internet
  • The website URL will be (depending on the region)
    • http://bucket-name.s3-website-aws-region.amazonaws.com
      OR
    • http://bucket-name.s3-website.aws-region.amazonaws.com
  • If you get a 403 Forbidden error, make sure the bucket
    policy allows public reads!
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9
Q

What is Amazon S3 Versioning ?

A

Amazon S3 Versioning is a feature that allows you to preserve, retrieve, and restore every version of every object in your buckets, providing an additional level of protection from accidental deletion or alteration of data.

  • You can version your files in Amazon S3
  • It is enabled at the bucket level
  • Same key overwrite will change 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
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10
Q

What is Amazon S3 – Replication (CRR & SRR) ?

A

Amazon S3 Replication includes Cross-Region Replication (CRR) and Same-Region Replication (SRR):

CRR: Automatically replicates data across AWS regions, providing a robust disaster recovery solution and reducing latency for international users.

SRR: Allows automatic, asynchronous copying of objects across buckets in the same AWS region, useful for log aggregation, live application testing, and other data-copying needs.

  • Must enable Versioning in source and destination buckets
  • Cross-Region Replication (CRR)
  • Same-Region Replication (SRR)
  • Buckets can be in different AWS accounts
  • Copying is asynchronous
  • Must give proper IAM permissions to S3
  • Use cases:
    • CRR – compliance, lower latency access, replication across accounts
    • SRR – log aggregation, live replication between production and test
      accounts
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11
Q

Which are the S3 Storage Classes ?

A
  • 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
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12
Q

What do you know about S3 Durability and Availability ?

A
  • 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
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13
Q

What do you know about S3 Standard – General Purpose ?

A
  • 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…
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14
Q

What do you know about S3 Storage Classes – Infrequent Access ?

A
  • For data that is less frequently accessed, but requires rapid access when needed
  • Lower cost than S3 Standard
  • Amazon S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)
    • 99.9% Availability
    • Use cases: Disaster Recovery, backups
  • Amazon 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
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15
Q

What do you know about Amazon S3 Glacier Storage Classes ?

A
  • 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
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16
Q

What do you know about S3 Intelligent-Tiering ?

A
  • 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
17
Q

How do S3 Storage Classes Compare ?

A
18
Q

S3 Storage Classes – Price Comparison
Example: us-east-1

A
19
Q

S3 Encryption

A
20
Q

What is the Shared Responsibility Model for S3 ?

A
21
Q

What is the AWS Snow Family ?

A
22
Q

What do you know about Data Migrations with AWS Snow Family ?

A
23
Q

What do you know about Snowball Edge (for data transfers) ?

A
24
Q

What do you know about AWS Snowcone & Snowcone SSD ?

A
25
Q

What do you know about AWS Snowmobile ?

A
26
Q

AWS Snow Family for Data Migrations

A
27
Q

What is the Snow Family – Usage Process ?

A
  1. Request Snowball devices from the AWS console for delivery
  2. Install the snowball client / AWS OpsHub on your servers
  3. Connect the snowball to your servers and copy files using the client
  4. Ship back the device when you’re done (goes to the right AWS
    facility)
  5. Data will be loaded into an S3 bucket
  6. Snowball is completely wiped
28
Q

What is Edge Computing?

A
29
Q

What do you Snow Family – Edge Computing ?

A
30
Q

What do you know about AWS OpsHub ?

A
31
Q

What do you know about Hybrid Cloud for Storage ?

A
  • 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!
32
Q

What is AWS Storage Gateway ?

A