AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials T3.6

A highly scalable object storage service by AWS.

Key Features: Store files as objects in buckets. Built for 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability. Accessible via the internet or private network.

Common Use Cases: Storing backups, images, videos, and logs. Hosting static websites.

S3 Standard

S3 Intelligent-Tiering

S3 Standard-IA (Infrequent Access)

S3 One Zone-IA

S3 Glacier (Instant and Flexible Retrieval)

S3 Glacier Deep Archive

S3 Outposts

General-purpose storage for frequently accessed data.

Use Case: Active applications like websites or mobile apps.

Lower cost for data accessed less frequently but still needs high durability

Use Case: Backups, disaster recovery.

Stores data in a single AZ (lower durability than Standard-IA).

Use Case: Non-critical data like secondary backups

Data divided into fixed-size blocks for low-latency, high-performance.

Lowest-cost storage for data rarely accessed.

Key Features: Cheapest of all S3 storage classes. Ideal for long-term storage of data that must be retained for compliance or historical purposes.

Retrieval Times: Standard: 12 hours. Bulk: Up to 48 hours for large-scale data.

Use Case: Legal documents, compliance archives, or backups that may never need to be accessed but must be preserved.

S3 storage in your on-premises AWS Outposts environment.

Use Case: Local storage for low-latency workloads

A scalable block storage service for use with EC2 instances.

Key Features: Persistent storage that survives instance termination. Highly customizable for performance (e.g., SSD, HDD options).

Use Cases: Databases, virtual machines, and transactional workloads.

File storage provides shared storage that can be accessed by multiple instances or users.

Data is stored temporarily like cached data.

File storage for Windows applications, supporting Active Directory integration.

A fully managed file storage service for shared access.

Key Features: Scalable and elastic file storage for Linux-based workloads. Supports multiple AZs for high availability.

Use Cases: Content management systems, web servers.

High-performance file storage for compute-intensive tasks like machine learning.

Object Storage (Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service))

Block Storage (Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store))

Temporary Storage (Instance Store)

File Storage (Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) and Amazon FSx)

Hybrid Storage (AWS Storage Gateway)

Centralized service for automating and managing backups of AWS services.

Automate moving data between S3 storage classes based on predefined rules.

Example: Move infrequently accessed data from S3 Standard to S3 Glacier after 30 days.

AWS FSx provides file systems for specific use cases:

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server.

Amazon FSx for Lustre.

Key Features: File Gateway: Caches files locally and uploads them to S3. Tape Gateway: Virtual tape library for backups. Volume Gateway: Presents cloud-backed iSCSI volumes to on-premises applications.

Use Cases: Transitioning to the cloud, hybrid workloads.

Connecting on-premises storage with AWS.

Benefits: Reduce storage costs by automatically transitioning data to lower-cost tiers. Simplify data management.

Use Cases: Log retention policies for applications. Long-term storage of rarely accessed historical data.

Temporary block storage attached directly to an EC2 instance.

Key Features: Data is lost when the instance stops or terminates. High-speed, low-latency storage.

Use Cases: Temporary data like caches or buffers.

Low-cost storage for long-term archival data.

Key Features: Provides instant access to frequently accessed archival data. Suitable for use cases where data needs to be retrieved quickly, like media archives or medical records. Comparable to standard S3 in retrieval speed but at a lower cost.

Retrieval Time: Milliseconds.

Use Case: Storing regulatory data that might be accessed often but doesn’t need high-performance storage.

Amazon RDS Amazon Relational Databases,

Amazon EBS Amazon Elastic Block Store,

Amazon DynamoDB,

Amazon EFS Amazon Elastic File System,

and more.

Key Features: Centralized management of backup policies. Automated backup scheduling. Supports encryption and retention policies.

Use Cases: Disaster recovery. Regulatory compliance for data retention.

Hybrid storage service connecting on-premises applications to AWS cloud storage.

Automatically moves data between storage classes based on access patterns.

Use Case: Data with unknown or changing access patterns.

Use Amazon S3 for object storage and configure S3 Intelligent-Tiering to optimize costs.

Solution: Use Amazon EBS with an IOPS-optimized SSD.

Solution: Use Amazon FSx for Lustre for high-speed file storage.

Solution: Use AWS Backup to centralize backup policies.

For archival data that is accessed occasionally and where retrieval time can be flexible.

Key Features: Offers a balance between retrieval speed and cost. Allows retrieval of large volumes of data cost-effectively. Supports free retrieval for up to 5% of your data stored monthly.

Retrieval Times: Standard: Minutes to hours (retrieves most archives within 3–5 hours). Bulk: Up to 12 hours for large-scale retrievals. Expedited: Available within 1–5 minutes for smaller archives.

Use Case: Backup data or historical business records that are rarely needed but sometimes must be retrieved quickly.