What is S3 Storage?
The amount of information that cannot be lost is growing every year. The more data you need to work with, the more urgent the need for reliable cloud storage, where files are safe and always available. It is not safe to store business-critical information on traditional local disks, removable media and tape drives. Financial and reputational losses in the event that the local storage fails can kill the entire business.
Storing business data in the cloud has become a standard for a long time. Here they are reliably protected both from unauthorized access and from sudden loss. Recently, more and more companies are choosing S3 cloud object storage.
Easy about complicated
The main advantage of S3 storage is the ability to work from any geographical point with files of any type and volume. The principle of S3 is simple: data is placed in many containers (folders). The contents of any container can be viewed, moved, or deleted. Each container and object has an address in the form of a unique identifier. It is used as a data access key. These keys can have any string value. If necessary, you can make the keys contain important information for the work — for example, whether the object belongs to a project.
You can also assign tags to objects in each container. Each object can have several tags of different types. This will come in handy if you need to describe it as accurately as possible. For example, you can create an audio file with tags of the artist's name, song titles, album titles, and other information. In the future, this metadata is indexed, which greatly facilitates and significantly speeds up the search for the desired objects by the specified attributes. In addition, when working with them, there is no confusing hierarchical file system with complex and long addresses.
An important point: working with S3 storage, you know where and in what form your data is stored, who can access it and what resources your organization uses at any given time. Identification and access control tools combined with continuous data monitoring guarantee security.
Why use object storage
Most likely, your company needs to work with a large amount of different data. These can be video surveillance system recordings, backups, hosting, big data storage and much more. If you realize that traditional cloud storage is no longer enough for all this, and working with the corporate cloud is getting slower, then it's time for object storage. It will help you rationally organize work with any amount of information.
S3 cloud from Serverspace provider allows you to store an unlimited number of files on Enterprise equipment with 99.9% SLA. Triple replication reliably protects data on servers and provides them with a guarantee of security from external threats. Another advantage of Serverspace object storage is full compatibility with S3 and Swift protocols.
Here are common examples of S3 usage:
- Storage of backups. As already mentioned, triple replication in Serverspace minimizes the risk of data loss. You can flexibly manage backups by putting valuable data in private containers. In addition, you can store different versions of the same file in different containers;
- Transferring static content to the cloud. Any video and graphic materials can be stored. For example, photos, presets, templates, footage, source data and more, and you can store video surveillance system files, corporate archives, documents and website data. Thus, the load on the hosting and the company's server is significantly reduced;
- Creating applications that use data from the cloud. You can start with small volumes and increase them as needed, without sacrificing performance or reliability. That is, you can focus only on creating applications, without thinking at all about efficient data storage and security;
- Solving problems with traffic spikes. Resources are instantly redistributed here so that the peak load does not affect the operation of applications. This eliminates additional costs.
How to connect to S3 storage
You can't process objects inside it, you can either upload or download them there. In addition, it is not the users themselves who work with it, but applications or individual systems that connect via the API. The basis of the API is the HTTP protocol. There are several ways to connect. Each company decides for itself which one is more convenient. Here are the two most popular options.
S3Browser
S3Browser will allow you to connect to the storage via S3 protocol. It is easy to use — you need to enter the account name, select the connection type "S3 Compatible Storage", specify the connection address, access key ID, and secret key value and activate, if necessary, the data encryption option when connecting. After that, you can start working with the cloud.
Swift API/Cyberduck
To set up a Swift API connection, after installing and launching Cyberduck, you need to specify that you are connecting to the object cloud. Then you need to specify the server name, port number 443, access key and password. After that, you can get to work.
For what do we need storage?
| What tasks is S3 storage suitable for? | |
|---|---|
| Ensuring the operation of websites and mobile applications | ✓ |
| Archiving, analysis of large amounts of data | ✓ |
| Storage of static content, multimedia files | ✓ |
| Storage of user data and backups | ✓ |
| Distribution of static files | ✓ |
| Data storage of backend platforms | ✓ |
| Electronic document management | ✓ |
| Storing transaction histories and logs | ✓ |
| Storing IP backups | ✓ |
| Storage of unstructured data | ✓ |
Conclusion
The S3 object storage service is becoming more and more popular among various companies that need to work with a large amount of data. Representing a highly reliable solution, such S3 can store billions or even trillions of files, and its volume can be hundreds of petabytes. Security, reliability and fault tolerance make it more and more popular.
