AWS S3 Glacier

AWS S3 Glacier is a storage service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) designed for long-term data archiving and backup. It is part of the Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) family and offers a cost-effective way to store data securely in the cloud for extended periods.

Key features of AWS S3 Glacier include:

1. Data Archiving: S3 Glacier allows you to archive data that you don’t need to access frequently but want to retain for compliance, legal, or business reasons.

2. Durability and Availability: Amazon S3 Glacier is designed for 99.999999999% (11 nines) data durability, ensuring that your archived data is highly resilient.

3. Data Retrieval: While S3 Glacier is optimized for data archiving, retrieving data from Glacier can take some time (ranging from minutes to hours) due to its low-cost, long-term storage nature. There are three retrieval options: Expedited, Standard, and Bulk, with varying retrieval times and costs.

4. Pricing Model: S3 Glacier offers cost-effective storage options, but be aware that there may be additional costs associated with data retrieval and transfer out of Glacier.

5. Vaults and Archives: In S3 Glacier, data is organized into “vaults,” and each vault can contain multiple “archives” (files or objects).

6. Security and Compliance: AWS provides various security features like encryption, access control, and compliance options to help ensure the security and privacy of your archived data.

It’s essential to consider your data access patterns and requirements when using AWS S3 Glacier, as retrieving data from Glacier is not as immediate as standard storage classes like S3 Standard or S3 Intelligent-Tiering.