Amazon Simple Storage Service
API Reference (API Version 2006-03-01)
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Glossary

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A method that enables a client to see if a server can accept a request before actually sending it. For large PUTs, this can save both time and bandwidth charges.

account

AWS account associated with a particular developer.

authentication

The process of proving your identity to the system.

bucket

A container for objects stored in Amazon S3. Every object is contained within a bucket. For example, if the object named photos/puppy.jpg is stored in the johnsmith bucket, then it is addressable using the URL http://johnsmith.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/puppy.jpg

canned access policy

A standard access control policy that you can apply to a bucket or object. Valid Values: private | public-read | public-read-write | authenticated-read | bucket-owner-read | bucket-owner-full-control

canonicalization

The process of converting data into a standard format that will be recognized by a service such as Amazon S3.

consistency model

The method through which Amazon S3 achieves high availability, which involves replicating data across multiple servers within Amazon's data centers. After a "success" is returned, your data is safely stored. However, information about the changes might not immediately replicate across Amazon S3.

key

The unique identifier for an object within a bucket. Every object in a bucket has exactly one key. Since a bucket and key together uniquely identify each object, Amazon S3 can be thought of as a basic data map between "bucket + key" and the object itself. Every object in Amazon S3 can be uniquely addressed through the combination of the web service endpoint, bucket name, and key, as in http://doc.s3.amazonaws.com/2006-03-01/AmazonS3.wsdl, where "doc" is the name of the bucket, and "2006-03-01/AmazonS3.wsdl" is the key.

metadata

The metadata is a set of name-value pairs that describe the object. These include default metadata such as the date last modified and standard HTTP metadata such as Content-Type. The developer can also specify custom metadata at the time the Object is stored.

object

The fundamental entities stored in Amazon S3. Objects consist of object data and metadata. The data portion is opaque to Amazon S3.

part

The fundamental entities stored in Amazon S3. Objects consist of object data and metadata. The data portion is opaque to Amazon S3.

service endpoint

The host and port with which you are trying to communicate within the destination URL. For virtual hosted-style requests, this is mybucket.s3.amazonaws.com. For path-style requests, this is s3.amazonaws.com