What Is AWS S3 and How to Synchronize Data to S3?
Overview
What is AWS S3?
Amazon Web Services is a simple and efficient electronic storage platform. It targets developers, with web-scale computations brought in ease between their hands.
Amazon S3 has a self-guiding interface that allows the user to swiftly navigate through its web services. Its services are designed for data storage and recovery with an unlimited amount used, at any time, and from anywhere on the network. It offers any developer the usage of the same services that Amazon uses to run its own global network of websites, given with access to the same reliable and reasonably-priced data storage infrastructure that is designed to deal with large scales of data using a minimal period of time.
In this article, I will discuss the AWS S3, with the options available for syncing data to S3, steps for syncing using the CLI, and also for using the NetApp Cloud service as a tool to sync files to an S3 bucket, where companies can use the AWS S3 data sync features to transfer any NFSv3 or CIFS file share to the S3 bucket.
What is it used for?
As firms and companies of today’s world need to be capable of collecting, storing and analyzing their data, which are potentially of unparalleled scales, in a secure and simple process, they, therefore, need AWS. For more details, see the official documentation.
It was specifically built for developers and for this kind of lengthy processes. AWS S3 is used for an unmatched durability, reliability, and scalability, as it runs on the world’s largest global cloud infrastructure, to deliver 99.9% durability for the customer. It provides the most comprehensive security and compliance capabilities, due to the fact that it is the only cloud storage platform that supports three different forms of encryption for its stored data, at the same time.
Briefly, organizations can migrate all of their bulky, yet important, databases to S3, negating the need for an on-premise storage. It can be also used to store and distribute static web content, separately, since each stored object has its own URL. Moreover, it can be used for statistical purposes, where companies can sync their data to S3 and then sync it back to an on-premise system, to be able to gain a statistical report on their data.
Overview of the options available for syncing data to S3
There are several methods used to sync data from an on-premise system or any other cloud system to S3, and vice versa. The method to be followed is a matter of choice, as it also depends on the amount of data that needs to be synced. For smaller amounts of data, less than a petabyte, three methods can be followed. First of which is the Command Line Interface, or the CLS, which will be explained thoroughly later. The second one is the Import/Export method, which is a suitable option for 16 terabytes of data or less. The third one is the Storage Gateway, which is a hybrid system of cloud storage, where the user keeps a copy of the data on their on-premise systems.
Steps for uploading files to AWS S3 using the CLI method
Following this method requires setting up an IAM user, before installing the AWS CLI on the device. Then, one can perform all sorts of actions on the data, using the CLI commands. The user has an option of writing their own scripts for backing up files and retrieving them from the cloud. The process will be explained simply, in three separate steps.
Step 1:
Creating an AWS IAM user.
In this step, the user shall create a user account with administrative permission. The user can follow the simplistic AWS management console’s steps, ending up by saving the Credentials file, as it will be needed in Step 3.
Step 2:
Install and Configure the AWS CLI.
After acquiring an IAM user, the customer needs to download and configure the CLI. A little bit different, the steps would be for different OS systems. But, the process basically includes downloading and installing the installer, then configuring the AWS within the system through the command line.
Step 3:
Using the AWS CLI with Amazon S3.
In this step, the user will create a bucket in S3 and fill it with data from a file or a database. The bucket will act as a container to the file(s) the user will put in this bucket, more like a folder. Then, this bucket can be accessed, renamed, modified or deleted through command line instructions.
For more details on using CLI commands with S3, see the official documentation.
Syncing data to S3 using the NetApp Cloud Sync service
As mentioned earlier, AWS uses three different forms of encryption for the data they manage the transfer of, with high reliability and tight security measures that are covered with the company’s firewalls to ensure the safety of the data.
NetApp cloud sync is a tool that can be used to sync data to S3. Using this method, companies can sync their data from any NFSv3 or CIFS file share to an S3 bucket.
Steps of syncing:
First, we need to ensure that the three main components in this process are defined and configured, they are:
The NFS Server, The Data Broker, The S3 bucket.
Step 1:
Configure the NFS server, while choosing the IP address or a hostname that the Data Broker can identify and access.
Step 2:
This step concerns identifying the Data Broker, which is the main application responsible for the process of the data transfer between the NFS volume and the S3 bucket. It needs to have access to the NFS server, so it can read and/or write data.
Step 3:
After installing the system on the local device, the installer will establish all the prerequisites and run the services on the device. After this, the user needs to select the NFS share from the server that will be synced.
Performance & Security
AWS S3 is evidently a fast data transfer system, which is one of the major benefits of the Cloud sync system.
This is due to the parallelization of work that is embedded within the system. It walks through directories and transmits files in parallel. Moreover, Cloud sync keeps a catalog of the data uploaded, and would spot any changes, or files that are not synced, and would sync them automatically, syncing only the changed data, to ensure a fast and efficient process.
Administrators can run scripts through the CLI to schedule a regular sync or specify a section of the data, that they wish to be synced, and can make the process completely automated, by scheduling a regular automatic sync. Which puts the S3 at the top of the list of methods for transferring large data sets from an on-premise to a cloud, as it takes significantly less time than the other available methods.
On the other hand, S3 is strongly secure. The high security of the data transfer provided by AWS comes from the fact that the data flow is performed completely by the services carried out by Data Broker. Which means that the Cloud Sync is only responsible for supervising the transfer, without having actual access to the data itself. This ensures the safety of the data and the inability for an outsider to break through the system. This is because the data stays within the company’s security system at all time. Finally, all the communications with S3 are executed on the secure API, provided by Amazon.
Closing Thoughts
Companies and Organizations with massive structures of databases would definitely rethink their data strategies after AWS S3. This service represents an easy and simplistic process of data storage on a Cloud with a solid performance, high speed, and tight security measures. Moreover, utilizing the NetApp Cloud sync can give an advantage to the user with this flexible, reasonably priced system.
References
Amazon, What is Amazon S3?
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/Welcome.html
Amazon, Uploading files to S3
https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/tutorials/backup-to-s3-cli/
Amazon, S3 Product details
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/details/
Amazon S3 CLI documentation:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/using-s3-commands.html
AWS S3 data sync with NetApp:
https://cloud.netapp.com/blog/synchronizing-data-to-s3-cloud-sync