Cloud Storage Definition
Cloud storage is a kind of cloud computing model that allows users to store data and files on the internet through a cloud computing provider. A user can access this data either through the public internet or a dedicated private network connection. Modern storage solutions like Amazon’s S3 backup is a handy tool that delivers cost-effective, scalable storage and a convenient means to store data.
As an efficient computing model, it also prevents you from ever running out of storage capacity, maintaining storage area networks, replacing failed devices, adding infrastructure to scale up with demand, or operating underutilized hardware when demand decreases. Cloud storage is often called elastic, meaning that it allows you to scale up and down with demand and pay only for what you use. It is a way for organizations to save data securely online so that it can be accessed anytime from any location by those with permission.
So in the following paragraphs, we’ll be diving into all the things you need to know about the storage features of the world’s favorite web service – Amazon Web Services, or as it is better known – AWS.
Different Types of AWS Storage
Customers rely on AWS storage services to transform their increase business agility, accelerate productivity, and reduce costs. The AWS portfolio is a useful and wide range of storage solutions with deep functionality for storing, accessing, protecting, and analyzing your data. Listed below are a few of the most popular.
S3
Amazon Simple Storage Service, or simply Amazon S3 for the sake of brevity, is an object storage service and is one of the core services of the Amazon Web Services (or AWS) cloud infrastructure. S3 is among the three foundational services that Amazon started with back in 2006.
The S3 offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Simply put, this means that it is just like a regular file system that you have on your computer but has no limit to the amount of data you can store on it. It also offers premium performance without compromising on security protocols.
EFS
Amazon Elastic File System, or simply EFS, provides a simple, serverless, set-and-forget elastic file system. With Amazon EFS, you can create a file system, mount the file system on an Amazon EC2 instance, and then read and write data to and from your file system. You can mount an Amazon EFS file system in your virtual private cloud (VPC) through the Network File System versions 4.0 and 4.1 (NFSv4) protocol.
Storage Gateway
AWS Storage Gateway is another cloud storage service with a hybrid nature. Storage Gateway provides on-premises access to virtually unlimited cloud storage, hence its hybrid nature.
Snowball Edge
AWS Snowball Edge is another hybrid cloud storage device with onboard storage and computes power for select AWS capabilities. Snowball Edge can do local processing and edge-computing workloads in addition to transferring data between your local environment and the AWS Cloud.
Each Snowball Edge device can transport data at speeds faster than the internet. This transport is done by shipping the data in the appliances through a regional carrier. The appliances are rugged, complete with E Ink shipping labels.
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is an easy-to-use, scalable, high-performance block-storage service designed for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).ed, complete with E Ink shipping labels.
EBS
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) is an easy-to-use, scalable, high-performance block-storage service designed for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).
Benefits of AWS Storage Solutions
AWS Storage Solutions strive to make its users lives easier. Overarchingly, its portfolio allows them to:
Access the storage needed faster
Make resources available in minutes! It allows its users to reduce over-provisioning and speed time to market and avoid complex capacity planning with just a few clicks.
Reduce storage spend
The unique features of AWS Storage allow its users to optimize their storage costs based on how frequently and quickly they need to access your data. Ultimately, this helps you minimize your total cost of ownership with managed services that eliminate infrastructure maintenance.
Secure your storage
AWS cares about your storage and supports several security standards and compliance certifications! The key when designing the encryption and security standards was to satisfy requirements for virtually every regulatory agency around the globe, which the tool does successfully.
Fuel innovation with new insights
AWS Cloud Storage provides its users with a variety of tools to get more from their data and accelerate new product and service delivery. This means you can artificial intelligence (AI), run big data analytics, high-performance computing (HPC), machine learning (ML), and media processing applications on all your cloud data.
Customers of all sizes and industries can use Amazon S3 to store and protect any amount of data for a range of use cases; IoT devices, mobile applications, websites, big data analytics, backup and restore, data lakes, and enterprise applications. Amazon S3 provides management features so that you can optimize, organize, and configure access to your data to meet your specific business, organizational, and compliance requirements.
The Amazon Cloud storage services are a handy tool for any business – booming or nascent to have good control over their data and files. S3 is a very foundational service that allows several varied applications. Coupled with the extensive features provided, the S3 is quite lucrative owing to the compelling cost. As a bonus, this storage solution also allows you to pay solely for what you use!
Experts worldwide agree that along with its premium encryption features and its advanced storage abilities, it is certainly the most powerful and cost-effective service available in the market. The key features of S3 service are definitely that it is infinite, highly scalable, easily available, customizable, manageable, and immensely secure. Considering an unlimited amount of data can be stored for your organization’s purposes and that this comes with durability and simple accessibility without compromising on security standards, the Amazon S3 is one of the most viable services to use.
