A Demo on Static Website Hosting with Amazon S3

Introduction

The internet’s storage system is Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).

1. Amazon S3 is secure because AWS provides the following:

• Data encryption for the information you keep. It may occur in one of two ways:

-Cryptography on the client side

– Client/Server Cryptography

• Multiple copies are kept to allow data regeneration in the event of data corruption.
• Versioning, which stores each change for future retrieval.

2. Amazon S3 is Durable because:

• It frequently uses checksums to verify the integrity of the data stored; for example, if S3 discovers any data corruption, it instantly fixes it using replicated data.
• It examines inbound network traffic for corrupted data packets while storing or retrieving data.

3. Since it instantly scales your storage to meet your needs and you only pay for the storage you use, Amazon S3 is highly scalable.

Types of Data that can be Stored in Amazon S3

When discussing capacity, the volume and the number of objects that can be stored in S3 are practically limitless and can be stored in any format.

When we talk about data, it can be of two types-

• Data is to be accessed frequently.
• Data is accessed not that frequently.

As a result, Amazon developed 3 storage classes to offer its customers the finest service at a reasonable price.

1. Amazon S3 Standard for frequent data access:

This is appropriate for performance-sensitive use scenarios where minimal latency is desired. For instance, in a hospital, the data on newly admitted patients will be frequently accessed and should be retrieved promptly.

2. Amazon S3 Standard for infrequent data access

This is appropriate in use cases where there is a need to archive data but still anticipate high performance because the data is long-lived and accessed less frequently. For instance, people discharged from the same hospital won’t need their records or data daily, but if they return with a problem, it’s important to access their discharge summary rapidly.

3. Amazon Glacier

It is less expensive than the other two services and suitable for use cases where data needs to be archived, but good performance is unnecessary. For instance, in a hospital older than a year patient test results, prescriptions, MRI, X-ray, and scan documents won’t be needed regularly, and even then, reduced latency won’t be necessary.

How is Data Organized in Amazon S3?

Data in Amazon S3 is organized in the form of buckets.

• A Bucket is a logical unit of storage in Amazon S3.
• A Bucket contains objects which contain the data and metadata.

Before adding any data to Amazon S3, the user has to create a bucket that will be used to store objects.

Where is your Data Stored Geographically?

Your data can be stored in any location or area that you choose. Choosing a choice that will affect the entire area is crucial, so careful planning is necessary.

These are the 4 parameters to choose the optimal region –

• Pricing
• User/Customer Location
• Latency
• Service Availability

How is Amazon S3 Billed?

Despite having a lot of features, AWS S3’s pricing is reasonable and adaptable. Pay Per Use means you only pay for what you use. An illustration of S3 pricing for a particular area is shown in the table below:

Cross Region Replication is billed in the following way:

You will pay $0.005 in request fees (1,000 requests x $0.005 per 1,000 requests) for replicating 1,000 objects and $20 ($0.020 per GB transferred x 1,000 GB) for inter-region data transmission if you replicate 1,000 1 GB objects (1,000 GB) between regions. Depending on the destination area, the 1,000 GB will be charged for storage after replication.

Snowball, there are 2 variants:

Snowball 50 TB: 200$

Snowball 80 TB:  250$

This is the fixed service fee that they charge.

Additionally, on-site fees are not included in shipment days; shipping days are free.

The first 10 on-site days are also cost-free; these days begin the moment the Snowball arrives at your location and ends the day it is transported back. Both the day of delivery and shipment are free because they qualify as shipping days.

Transfer Acceleration pricing is shown in the following table:

Steps to host a static website on Amazon S3

Step 1: Create a bucket

In the Amazon Management Console, select Amazon S3 and then click Create Bucket to start the creation process. You’ll be asked to type in your name and location.

Use that as the name of your container if you intend to use your domain or sub-domain. Select the region that is nearest to you and click Create. Hopefully, your new bucket will show up in the dashboard.

Step 2: Enable Website Hosting

Now, all that needs to be done is to activate static website hosting. Select it by clicking on it in the properties window to the right.

Step 3: Create a HTML File

Ensure sure index.html is selected as the Index Document. If you’d like, you can also specify a warning page. Hit Save once you’re finished.

The Amazon Management Console has the useful feature of allowing browser-based file uploads to buckets. Let’s begin by establishing one with the name index.html. The home page’s information will be as follows:

Step 4: Upload the File in a Bucket

To upload the file, select your new bucket and hit Start Upload button.

Once index.html has been published, it will show up in your bucket. However, because everything in Amazon S3 is private by default, you won’t be able to see it in your browser just yet.

Step 5: Make the Html File Public

To make the index.html file public, right-click on index.html and select Make Public. (Remember to do this for any other files you upload to your website!)

Now that your homepage is visible to the world, it’s time to test everything!

Go to the Properties tab in the console and pick index.html.

Click on the object URL.

Congratulations! You have just hosted an HTML website in AWS using S3.

Conclusion

As the need for storage increased daily and it became challenging to predict how much capacity one may require in the future, building and managing a repository became time-consuming and laborious.

With all these concerns in mind, Amazon developed the AWS S3 online storage option.

Amazon S3 is Secure, Durable, and Highly Scalable. Regarding capacity, the volume and the number of objects that can be stored in S3 are practically limitless and can be stored in any format.

About CloudThat

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Drop a query if you have any questions regarding Amazon S3 and I will get back to you quickly.

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