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This introduction to Amazon S3 is intended to give you a detailed summary of this web service. After reading this section, you should have a good idea of what it offers and how it can fit in with your business.
Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
Amazon S3 has a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of websites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits to developers.
Amazon S3 is intentionally built with a minimal feature set that focuses on simplicity and robustness. Following are some of features of the Amazon S3 service:
Enables you to write, read, and delete objects from 1 byte to 5 gigabytes in size with accompanying metadata. There is no fixed limit on the number of objects you can store.
Provides a straightforward flat object store model, where each object is stored and retrieved using a unique developer-assigned key.
Provides authentication mechanisms to ensure that data is kept secure from unauthorized access. Objects can be made private or public and rights can be granted to specific users.
Uses standards-based REST and SOAP interfaces designed to work with any Internet-development toolkit.
