Everything about Amazon S3 data integration– Benefits and How to Use It

What is Amazon S3?

The first thing you need to understand is how Amazon S3 stores and manages data.

Amazon S3 is a cloud service that offers extremely high durability and availability as an object storage service. It can be flexibly scaled even when handling large amounts of data, and its pay-as-you-go system allows you to operate resources efficiently. Another feature is that it can be operated directly from a program via an API, making it easy to integrate with in-house systems and external services.

When introducing Amazon S3, it's important to consider in advance how you'll use it. There are a variety of use cases, including static website hosting, backups, and log collection and analysis storage. By sorting out these requirements and then implementing it in an optimal phased manner, you can achieve both cost reduction and improved convenience.

Amazon S3 Basic Structure: Buckets and Objects

When storing data in Amazon S3, you first create an area called a "bucket" and then store objects within it. Bucket names must be globally unique and must follow naming rules. Also, because the object key name is treated like a file path, the directory structure is represented pseudo-likely.

You can also add metadata to each object, allowing you to tag and add custom information to improve searchability and classification. If you are managing large data sets, designing these metadata and naming conventions in advance will make operations smoother.

Amazon S3's pricing structure is based not only on the amount of data stored, but also on the number of data transfer requests. To optimize operational costs, it is important to select the appropriate storage class taking into account access frequency and storage period.

Storage Classes, Security, and Versioning

Amazon S3 offers multiple storage classes, including Standard, Infrequent Access, and Glacier, allowing you to flexibly select the storage class that best suits your data access frequency. By utilizing a lifecycle policy that automatically migrates infrequently used data to a lower-cost storage class, you can reduce unnecessary costs.

In terms of security, you can achieve high levels of protection by using server-side encryption and bucket policies. Properly controlling public access is a key point that many users tend to overlook. Furthermore, enabling versioning makes it easy to restore objects even if they are accidentally deleted.

It is necessary to determine encryption methods and data retention policies in accordance with system requirements and compliance regulations. By identifying operational requirements in advance and properly combining each function, you can strengthen security while reducing operational costs.

Benefits of using Amazon S3

Its major appeal lies in its high cost-effectiveness depending on the usage scenario and its abundant functions that simplify operation.

By using Amazon S3 appropriately, you can improve the scalability of your entire system. It automatically scales up and down as needed, so sudden increases in traffic are less likely to be a major issue. Additionally, using lifecycle policies to automatically switch data storage locations also helps optimize costs.

It can be used not only as a storage device, but also for log collection and analysis, centralized backup management, and the construction of advanced data pipelines by linking with other AWS services. By utilizing these functions comprehensively, it can provide strong support for your organization's data utilization strategy.

Key points for scalability and cost optimization

The scalability of Amazon S3 is a major advantage in quickly meeting modern business needs. While on-premises storage can reach capacity limits or require new hardware acquisition, Amazon S3 allows you to incrementally use only what you need.

Additionally, by utilizing lifecycle rules, you can automatically migrate data that has been in use for a certain period of time to Infrequent Access or Glacier, thereby optimizing costs. It is important to carefully analyze access patterns and determine the length of the cycle and the conditions for migration.

▼I want to know more about on-premise
⇒ On-Premises | Glossary

Additional features: Utilizing CORS settings and bucket policies

By using CORS settings, you can control access via browsers from different domains, making it easier to integrate with web applications. For example, this is useful in scenarios where resources on Amazon S3 are shared by multiple sites, or when calling objects directly from the front end.

Bucket policies are a powerful mechanism that allows you to set detailed access control, and can implement IP address restrictions and limit access to specific users. This allows for flexible control that can accommodate a variety of integration patterns while ensuring system security.

Steps for considering data integration

To facilitate the flow of data between systems, it is necessary to identify the points that need to be organized in advance.

There are a wide variety of data integration scenarios, such as temporarily uploading data from an on-premises environment or collecting logs from another AWS service. Clarifying the required bandwidth, transfer time, and security requirements between systems will enable you to design an appropriate architecture.

It is especially important to consider whether data encryption is necessary and the scope of IAM permissions. The more diverse the AWS services and external systems, the more complex the policies and network configurations tend to become, so the key to success will be to design systems that are consistent with operational monitoring early on.

▼I want to know more about data integration
⇒ data integration / data integration platform | Glossary

Organizing source resources and network configuration

The first step in integration is to clarify which resources will send data and how. For on-premises systems, you will need to secure a network route to connect to AWS, such as a VPN connection or Direct Connect. There are multiple protocol options, including FTP, HTTPS, and SFTP, so it is important to choose one that is easy to operate.

The load on the network line will vary depending on the size of the data and the required transmission frequency. Estimating traffic volume and peak transfer times in advance and reserving sufficient bandwidth will help avoid unexpected operational problems.

AWS IAM Permissions and Security Settings

When data integration on AWS, it is essential to configure IAM roles and policies appropriately. Be mindful of the principle of least privilege, which limits permissions to the bare minimum necessary, such as only writing or reading data.

Encryption of data transmitted over the network is also important. Multi-layered security can be achieved by combining encryption of the transfer path using SSL/TLS and Amazon S3 server-side encryption.

Designed with operational monitoring and troubleshooting in mind

In a system where data integration, it is essential to have a mechanism to quickly identify the cause and recover from any failures that occur. It is reassuring to implement monitoring using Amazon CloudWatch, CloudTrail, AWS Config, etc. to enable early detection of abnormalities.

Regularly reviewing and continuously improving log acquisition designs and metric monitoring can minimize the risk of system outages. Another important aspect of integration design is to determine in advance the response flow in the event of a failure and clarify the communication system and recovery procedures.

Cross-account Amazon S3 data integration

Even in an environment where AWS accounts are separated by organization or department, data can be shared safely and efficiently.

When integrating Amazon S3 between multiple AWS accounts, consistency of security policies becomes even more important. You must clearly define what operations are permitted between accounts and what data is shared to what extent before setting it up.

Cross-account integration provides operational flexibility through precise configuration of bucket policies and IAM roles, while also looking at disabling bucket ACLs and server-side encryption to help guide designs that meet security and compliance requirements.

Steps for setting up bucket policy and IAM role

To allow access from different AWS accounts, you need to either add specific account IDs to an allow list in the bucket policy or create an IAM role with the required permissions in each account. By allowing only the minimum number of actions and restricting unnecessary operations, you can reduce security risks.

When configuring this, it is easy to make mistakes such as accidentally disclosing the settings to the entire world, so it is important to use the policy generation tool or the policy editor in the management console with extreme care.

Disable bucket ACL and support server-side encryption

AWS recommends using bucket policies alone to control access without using ACLs. Disabling ACLs has the advantage of reducing the risk of confusion and misconfiguration due to overlapping permissions.

Furthermore, if you use server-side encryption with cross-account integration, your data will always be kept encrypted. KMS is generally used to manage keys, and you must consider in advance how you will share encryption keys between each account.

How to link with on-premise environments

If you want to migrate data from your in-house systems to the cloud, it's important to know how to do it efficiently and securely.

When linking data from an on-premises environment to Amazon S3, you need to consider procedures for uploading large amounts of data at once, and a system that can handle periodic synchronization patterns such as daily, weekly, or monthly. It is important to set up a planned schedule that suits your company's network bandwidth and operating hours.

Another important point to consider is how to utilize the migrated data. For example, if you need to perform analytical processing immediately after migration, you can smoothly link the migration work with the operation phase by considering in advance the use of an ETL tool or data lake service that can be integrated with Amazon S3.

Migration and synchronization procedure using AWS DataSync

AWS DataSync is a useful service for automating large-volume data migration and continuous synchronization. By configuring an agent on the source side and creating a task by specifying an Amazon S3 bucket as the destination, you can manage migration and synchronization relatively easily using a GUI.

If you configure the IAM role and bucket policy correctly, granting access permissions to the destination is not difficult. Another attractive feature of DataSync is that it has an incremental transfer function, which allows you to complete regular updates with minimal data traffic.

Utilizing AWS Storage Gateway and Transfer Family

AWS Storage Gateway is ideal for building a hybrid environment that connects on-premises and cloud. By utilizing the cache, on-premises applications can use Amazon S3 as if it were local storage, allowing you to integrate with the cloud without making major changes to your existing systems.

Transfer Family supports file transfer protocols such as SFTP, FTP, and FTPS, and is characterized by its high compatibility with external tools. By combining these services, you can flexibly incorporate the type of integration you need.

Tool integration: Use of FTP clients and external services

In on-premises environments, it is not uncommon for FTP clients to already be used to upload and download files. In such situations, one easy way to migrate to Amazon S3 is to use the AWS Transfer Family or file transfer software "HULFT."​

Using these tools, you can stream data into Amazon S3 without incurring significant learning costs. It's wise to start small and then scale up your operations based on your actual operations and file size requirements.

Collaboration with iPaaS "HULFT Square"

HULFT Square provides a connector for Amazon S3, allowing users to build data integration scripts using a GUI. This platform allows you to incorporate timing control of process execution and error handling processes, enabling efficient and flexible data integration.

On-premise and cloud. Streamline your data management.

▼I want to know more about iPaaS
⇒ iPaaS | Glossary

Summary: Innovate accounting operations through data integration and accelerate business growth

Let's review the concept of data integration using Amazon S3 and specific operational considerations, and summarize the key points.

Amazon S3 is an extremely excellent storage service in terms of scalability, cost, and security, and can cover a wide variety of data integration scenarios. It offers a wide range of options to suit your operational scale and requirements, including integration with on-premises environments and cross-account data sharing.

With adequate design and permission settings, and with the correct application of lifecycle policies and encryption, Amazon S3 can be used not just as storage but as a flexible data layer that can serve as the foundation of your company. As a future operational policy, it will be important to strengthen monitoring systems and regularly review policies to ensure that you are always using Amazon S3 in the most optimal way.

The person who wrote the article

Affiliation: Marketing Department

Yoko Tsushima

After joining Appresso (now Saison Technology), he worked as a technical sales representative, in charge of technical sales, training, and technical events. After leaving the company to return to his hometown, he rejoined the company in April 2023 under the remote work system. After gaining experience in the product planning department, he is currently in charge of creating digital content in the marketing department.
(Affiliations are as of the time of publication)

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