What is... S3?

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a scalable, high-speed, web-based cloud storage service designed for online backup and archiving of data and applications. It provides object storage in the form of 'buckets', accessible through a web service interface, allowing users to store and retrieve any amount of data at any time from anywhere on the web.

Key features of S3 include:

Scalability: Automatically scales to handle growing amounts of data without requiring user intervention.
Durability and Availability: Designed for 99.999999999% (11 9's) durability and 99.99% availability of objects over a given year.
Security: Offers robust security features, including encryption at rest and in transit, and fine-grained access controls using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).
Cost-Effective: Provides a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing users to only pay for the storage they use.
Integration: Integrates with other AWS services, making it a versatile choice for a wide range of applications, including data lakes, backup and restore, and big data analytics.

An S3 bucket is a logical container in Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 (Simple Storage Service) used to store objects, which consist of data and metadata. Each bucket is uniquely named and can hold an unlimited number of objects, making it ideal for storing large amounts of unstructured data such as backups, logs, and media files. Buckets provide features like versioning, lifecycle management, and access control to manage and secure the stored data effectively.