Amazon S3 tiers and lifecycle management

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a scalable object storage service offered by AWS. It is designed to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web. When preparing for the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam, understanding the different S3 storage classes and how to manage the lifecycle of objects is crucial.

S3 Storage Classes

Amazon S3 offers a range of storage classes designed for different use cases. These classes can be categorized based on data access patterns, performance, and cost.

S3 Standard

S3 Standard is the default storage class for frequently accessed data. It is designed for general-purpose storage of frequently accessed data with high durability (99.999999999% or 11 9’s), availability, and performance.

S3 Intelligent-Tiering

S3 Intelligent-Tiering is for data with unknown or changing access patterns. It automatically moves data between two access tiers – a frequent access tier and a lower-cost infrequent access tier – when access patterns change.

S3 Standard-IA (Infrequent Access)

Intended for data that is accessed less frequently, but requires rapid access when needed. S3 Standard-IA provides the same high durability and low latency as S3 Standard but at a lower cost.

S3 One Zone-IA

Similar to Standard-IA, but stores data in a single Availability Zone (AZ) at a 20% lower cost. It’s ideal for data that doesn’t require the same level of availability but still needs infrequent access with low latency.

S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive

S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive classes are designed for archival storage of data that is rarely accessed. S3 Glacier is suitable for long-term storage, where data retrieval times of a few minutes to several hours are acceptable. S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest-cost storage class and is intended for archiving data that is accessed once or twice a year.

S3 Storage Class Comparison

S3 Lifecycle Management

Lifecycle management in Amazon S3 allows you to automate the transitioning of objects to the most cost-effective storage class and manage object expiration. You can implement lifecycle policies to perform actions such as transitioning objects to a different storage class or deleting them after a specific period.

Transition Actions

Transition actions in lifecycle policies define when objects are transitioned to another storage class. For example, you might set a lifecycle policy to transition objects from S3 Standard to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, then to S3 Glacier after 90 days.

Expiration Actions

Expiration actions define when objects are deleted automatically. For instance, you might want to delete objects that are 365 days old to comply with company policies or legal requirements.

Lifecycle policies are set through S3 bucket management interfaces, using either the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, or the S3 APIs.

Here is an example of a lifecycle policy defined in JSON format:

{
“Rules”: [
{
“ID”: “MoveToStandardIA”,
“Filter”: {
“Prefix”: “documents/”
},
“Status”: “Enabled”,
“Transitions”: [
{
“Days”: 30,
“StorageClass”: “STANDARD_IA”
}
]
},
{
“ID”: “ArchiveToGlacier”,
“Filter”: {
“Prefix”: “archives/”
},
“Status”: “Enabled”,
“Transitions”: [
{
“Days”: 365,
“StorageClass”: “GLACIER”
}
]
},
{
“ID”: “DeleteOldFiles”,
“Filter”: {
“Prefix”: “logs/”
},
“Status”: “Enabled”,
“Expiration”: {
“Days”: 365
}
}
]
}

In the example above, documents are transitioned to S3 Standard-IA after 30 days, archives are transitioned to S3 Glacier after 365 days, and log files are deleted after 365 days.

Understanding S3’s various storage classes and lifecycle management is key for developers in optimizing costs and ensuring the proper handling of data throughout its lifecycle. When preparing for the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam, familiarity with these concepts, and knowing how to implement them will be a significant advantage.