Simple Storage Service (S3)

Question 1

What is an S3 Bucket?

Answer 1

Root level folder of storage organization in S3. Must select region, but cannot specify which availability zone, when creating bucket. Can create folders within buckets. with a parent/child relationship.

Question 2

Deep Glacier

Answer 2

1. Lowest cost long term storage for items accessed rarely in a year or required to be stored for long periods of time due to regulatory compliance. Objects replicated across at least 3 AZ’s
2. Must be able to accept 12 to 48-hour first byte latency for retrieval.
3. 99.999999999% Object durability (AKA 11x9 or 11 9’s)
4. 99.99% Object availability (AKA 4x9)
5. Cheapest storage option
6. Minimum storage duration is 180 days

Question 3

Glacier

Answer 3

1. Very low-cost, long-term archival storage. Data not immediately available when requested (minutes to 12 hours, but can pay for faster access). Technically not a storage class. Objects replicated across at least 3 AZ’s
2. Cannot move objects into here immediately.
3. 99.999999999% Object durability (AKA 11x9 or 11 9’s)
4. 99.99% Object availability (AKA 4x9)
5. Very low-cost S3 storage class
6. Minimum storage duration is 90 days
7. Retrieval fees apply and are per GB

Question 4

Glacier Retrieval

Answer 4

Expedited retrieval: 1-5 minutes, good for active archives

Standard retrieval: 3-5 hours, good for long term analytics

Bulk retrieval: 5-12 hours, lowest cost.

Question 5

Intelligent Tiering Storage Class

Answer 5

1. Designed to optimize costs by automatically moving data to the most cost-effective tier based on usage patterns. Objects replicated across at least 3 AZ’s
2. 99.999999999% object durability (AKA eleven 9’s or 11x9)
3. 99.90% Object availability
4. Pricing depends on the assigned storage class
5. Minimum storage duration is 30 days and per object fees apply for monitoring and automation

Question 6

One Zone - IA (Infrequent Access) Storage Class

Answer 6

1. Designed for objects that you do not access frequently, but must be available immediately when accessed (uses one availability zone).
2. 99.999999999% object durability (AKA eleven 9’s or 11x9) within 1 Availability Zone
3. 99.50% Object availability
4. Is about 20% less expensive than the standard - IA storage class
5. Minimum storage duration is 30 days
6. Minimum billable object size is 128KB
7. Retrieval fees apply and are per GB

Use Cases: It’s a good choice for storing secondary backup copies of on-premises data or easily re-creatable data. You can also use it as cost-effective storage for data that is replicated from another AWS Region using S3 Cross-Region Replication.

Question 7

S3 Pricing

Answer 7

Volume based discounts available. Tiered pricing means pay less per GB.

Question 8

Reduced Redundancy Storage Class

Answer 8

1. S3 storage option that enables customers to store noncritical, reproducible data at lower levels of redundancy than Amazon S3’s standard storage
2. 99.99% durability
3. 99.99% availability
4. While other storage classes (except One Zone - IA) are designed to sustain the loss of 2 AZ’s, RRS is designed to sustain the loss of 1 AZ.

Question 9

Standard Storage Class

Answer 9

1. Designed for general, all purpose and frequently accessed data storage. Objects replicated across at least 3 AZ’s
2. Default storage option
3. 99.999999999% object durability (AKA eleven 9’s or 11x9)
4. 99.99% Object availability (AKA 4x9)
5. Is the most expensive storage class

Question 10

Standard - IA (Infrequent Access) Storage Class

Answer 10

1. Designed for objects that you do not access frequently, but must be available immediately when accessed. Objects replicated across at least 3 AZ’s
2. 99.999999999% object durability (AKA eleven 9’s or 11x9)
3. 99.90% Object availability
4. Less expensive than standard storage class
5. Minimum storage duration is 30 days
6. Minimum billable object size is 128KB
7. Retrieval fees apply and are per GB

Use Case: The combination of low cost and high performance make S3 Standard-IA ideal for long-term storage, backups, and as a data store for disaster recovery files.

Question 11

What is Transfer Acceleration?

Answer 11

Secure, fast transfers of files over long distances between client and S3 bucket. Uses CloudFront’s edge locations.

Question 12

What is S3?

Answer 12

Simple Storage Service: Online, bulk storage service used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the earth. Any file type can be uploaded to S3.

Comes with multiple storage classes and associated pricing levels

Question 13

S3 Bucket Naming Requirements

Answer 13

1. Name of bucket must be unique across all of AWS
2. 3 to 63 characters in length
3. Can only contain lowercase numbers, letters, and hyphens
4. Must not be formatted as IP addresses

Question 14

What are the S3 Storage Class Options?

Answer 14

1. Standard
2. Standard - Infrequent Access
3. One Zone - Infrequent Access
4. Intelligent Tiering
5. Glacier

Default storage class is Standard

Question 15

By default, is an object publicly available?

Answer 15

No, it must be explicitly made publicly available to be accessed via a URL.

Question 16

By default, is an object versioned?

Answer 16

No, versioning must be configured.

Question 17

What is an object lifecycle policy?

Answer 17

A mechanism to set timetables for objects to be moved between different storage classes (similar to intelligent tiering).

Question 18

What are the key benefits of S3?

Answer 18

1. Extremely durable, reliable, and scalable.
2. Secure: Offers three different types of encryption
3. Integrates with almost all other AWS services
4. Can run big data analytics directly on objects in S3
5. Easy to get data in and out of S3
6. Robust admin and access management options available