AWS S3 Intelligent Tiering for Optimized Storage Costs

AWS S3 Intelligent Tiering is an automated storage tiering feature that helps you optimize storage costs by moving data between different storage classes based on access patterns. This feature is designed to minimize storage costs while ensuring data availability and accessibility.

Data is stored in the Standard storage class by default, but with Intelligent Tiering, data is automatically moved to the Infrequent Access (IA) or Glacier storage classes when it is not frequently accessed. This reduces storage costs without compromising data availability.

Intelligent Tiering can help you save up to 50% on storage costs compared to using a single storage class. This is because data is stored in the most cost-effective storage class based on its access patterns.

The feature uses machine learning algorithms to analyze access patterns and move data to the most cost-effective storage class. This means you don't have to manually manage data storage or worry about data being moved to the wrong storage class.

AWS S3 Intelligent Tiering is a cloud-based storage class that automatically archives objects to cost-efficient storage tiers for maximum benefit. It's designed for data with unknown or changing access patterns, such as application logs, media files, and sensor data.

This storage class continuously monitors your data usage and automatically moves it between three tiers—hot, warm, and cold—based on its access patterns. The hot tier is optimized for frequently accessed data, while the warm and cold tiers are designed for infrequently and rarely accessed data.

You only pay for the storage that you consume and a small monthly fee for monitoring and automation. This means you can save money on storage costs without sacrificing performance or availability.

AWS S3 Intelligent-Tiering can be used for frequently accessed data that doesn't need the lowest latency possible, such as backups and disaster recovery files. It's also ideal for data with changing or unknown access patterns.

Here are the different storage classes in S3:

Customers have saved $1 billion from the introduction of S3 Intelligent Tiering in 2018 by switching from S3 Standard to S3 Intelligent Tiering.

S3 Intelligent Tiering works by automatically moving objects between different storage tiers based on their access patterns and cost considerations.

It continuously analyzes the access patterns of stored objects, moving them from the frequent access tier to the infrequent access tier if they remain unused for 30 consecutive days.

Objects in the infrequent access tier are then automatically moved to the Archive Instant Access tier after 90 days of inactivity.

S3 Intelligent Tiering offers five storage tiers in total, each with its own criteria for data movement and performance characteristics.

Here's a breakdown of the five storage tiers:

S3 Intelligent Tiering eliminates the need for manual data management, automatically moving data between storage tiers based on access patterns and cost considerations.

S3 Intelligent Tiering is a game-changer for storing data in the cloud, offering numerous benefits and features that make it an ideal solution for businesses and individuals alike.

You can store objects in the S3 Intelligent-Tiering AIA tier for as short or as long as you want, without having to worry about any minimums.

One of the most significant advantages of S3 Intelligent Tiering is that it eliminates the need for manual object movement between storage tiers, reducing operational overhead and saving you time and money.

With S3 Intelligent-Tiering, you can save up to 40% on storage costs by storing frequently and infrequently accessed data in the same storage class, S3 Standard.

The service boasts unique advantages, such as the absence of operational complexities, retrieval charges, and any obligatory minimum storage duration.

Here are some of the key benefits of S3 Intelligent-Tiering:

• No retrieval charges

• No minimum storage duration

• Zero operational overhead

• Low latency and high throughput

• Durability of 99.999999999% of objects across multiple Availability Zones with 99.9% availability over a given year

S3 Intelligent-Tiering uses machine learning algorithms to monitor and predict user behavior, enabling it to make informed decisions about the most appropriate data storage tier.

This means that you don't have to decide at the start which files are best for which storage class, saving you time and effort.

The Frequent and Infrequent Access tiers offer the same exceptional attributes as the S3 Standard tier, including low latency and high throughput performance.

By leveraging S3 Intelligent-Tiering, you can take advantage of the same high-performance storage as S3 Standard, without incurring unnecessary costs.

The AIA tier is ideal for storing data that is infrequently accessed but still needs to be quickly available when needed, such as backups, log files, and media files.

S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically tiers any object in the IA tier that hasn’t been accessed in 90 days to the AIA tier, making it easy to manage your data storage needs.

S3 Intelligent Tiering offers significant potential cost savings through its storage tiers.

The Infrequent Access tier alone can save organizations up to 40% on storage costs compared to the frequent access tier.

Additionally, the Archive Instant Access tier provides even greater cost savings, reducing storage costs by up to 68%.

You pay for monthly storage, request, and data transfer with S3 Intelligent Tiering.

With Intelligent Tiering, you pay a small monthly per-object fee for monitoring and automation, which costs up to $0.0025 per 1000 objects.

There are no retrieval fees in S3 Intelligent Tiering, and no fee for moving data between tiers.

Objects in the Frequent Access tier are billed at the same rate as S3 Standard.

Objects stored in the Infrequent Access tier are billed at the same rate as S3 Standard Infrequent Access.

Objects in the Archive Instant Access Tier are billed at the same rate as S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval.

Here's a breakdown of the storage costs for each tier:

You can calculate the per-object fee using the AWS pricing calculator.

S3 Intelligent Tiering is designed for durability of 99.999999999% of objects across multiple Availability Zones with 99.9% availability over a given year.

No operational overhead, no retrieval charges, and no minimum storage duration are some of the benefits of using S3 Intelligent Tiering.

By automatically moving infrequently accessed data to the Infrequent Access tier, businesses can take advantage of lower storage rates without sacrificing data availability.

The Archive Instant Access tier provides immediate accessibility of your archived data by reducing the efforts involved in moving objects across tiers before retrieval.

Low latency and high throughput are offered by the Archive Instant Access tier, making it perfect for workloads that rely on high performance storage, such as video streaming or big data analytics.

Amazon S3 offers a range of storage tiers to help you optimize storage costs and performance. The most cost-effective tier is the Archive Instant Access Tier, which charges $0.004 per GB per month.

The Archive Instant Access Tier is ideal for infrequently accessed data that still needs to be quickly accessible. You can store objects in this tier for as short or as long as you want, without having to worry about any minimums. This makes it perfect for storing data that you may not need immediate access to, but still want to retain it for future use.

S3 Intelligent-Tiering automatically moves objects between storage tiers based on access patterns and cost considerations. This eliminates the need for manual data management and organization. With automated machine learning and analysis, it automatically moves data between storage tiers based on access patterns and cost considerations.

The Intelligent-Tiering algorithm uses machine learning to monitor access patterns and make real-time decisions on identifying the best storage tier for each object. This means that you no longer have to worry about manually moving objects between storage tiers or paying for unnecessary storage.

Here are the different access tiers offered by Amazon S3:

The Archive Access tier provides the option to move infrequently accessed data that hasn't been accessed in the last 90 days. It offers cost savings compared to the Archive Instant Access tier, although data retrieval takes longer (3-5 hours).

To implement S3 Intelligent Tiering effectively, you should consider data access patterns. This will help you determine the best storage tier for your data, which can significantly impact storage efficiency.

Data access patterns refer to how frequently and when your data is accessed. Understanding these patterns will allow you to set up lifecycle policies that optimize storage efficiency.

To optimize storage efficiency, you should set up lifecycle policies and analyze cost and access patterns. This will help you identify which data can be stored at a lower cost and which data requires faster access.

Here are some key considerations for implementing S3 Intelligent Tiering:

To effectively implement S3 Intelligent Tiering, consider your data access patterns. This will help you determine which data to store in which tier, ensuring optimal storage efficiency.

Understanding your data access patterns is crucial to get the most out of S3 Intelligent Tiering. This involves analyzing how frequently your data is accessed and how long it's stored.

To optimize storage efficiency, set up lifecycle policies that automatically transition data between storage tiers based on access patterns. This ensures that frequently accessed data is stored in a more expensive, but faster, tier, while less frequently accessed data is stored in a less expensive tier.

Monitoring your storage costs and access patterns is essential to optimize storage efficiency. This will help you identify areas where you can improve your storage strategy and reduce costs.

Here are some key considerations to keep in mind when implementing S3 Intelligent Tiering:

If your objects have highly predictable access patterns, object lifecycle rules might be a better choice than S3 Intelligent Tiering, helping you avoid the monitoring charge associated with it.

S3 Intelligent Tiering isn't suitable for objects smaller than 128KB, as they won't be moved from the frequent access tier to the infrequent access tier.

S3 Intelligent Tiering imposes a minimum storage duration charge of 30 days, so if your objects will be deleted within this timeframe, it may not be the best option.

If your use case doesn't involve predictable access patterns, small objects, or short-lived objects, S3 Intelligent Tiering is likely a suitable choice.

Implementing S3 Intelligent-Tiering can save you up to $750 million in storage costs, as seen with customers who have used it since its launch.

To take your storage optimization to the next level, consider extending the benefits of S3 Intelligent-Tiering with BlueXP Cloud Volumes ONTAP. This data management layer for AWS can automatically tier infrequently used EBS storage data to more cost-effective S3 Intelligent-Tiering.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP data tiering makes it possible to automatically move data back when needed, a feature not natively available on AWS.

With Cloud Volumes ONTAP, you can lower overall storage costs by up to 50% using built-in storage efficiencies, including deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP also gives you higher levels of data protection using NetApp Snapshot technology and Cloud Backup, making it a more cost- and space-efficient option.

Here's a breakdown of the benefits of Cloud Volumes ONTAP:

By using Cloud Volumes ONTAP, you can easily and efficiently move your data between AWS regions, on-prem deployments, and even different clouds using BlueXP replication with SnapMirror.

You must be the owner of the buckets or have the s3:PutLifecycleConfiguration access right to make changes to enable AWS S3 Intelligent Tiering.

To get started with Intelligent-Tiering, create a new storage class using the S3 Console, AWS CLI, or the PUT API object.

You can apply tiering rules on individual objects of an existing bucket by following a specific workflow.

To apply tiering policies at the object level of a bucket, navigate to the S3 console and select the bucket you want to enable Intelligent-Tiering on. Then, select the Management tab and click on Intelligent-Tiering.

Here are the steps to apply tiering policies:

You can also use the PUT API object to apply rules on how data is moved to S3 Intelligent-Tiering, and is then archived.

To move the darwinbucketexample bucket to Intelligent-Tiering, include INTELLIGENT_TIERING as a storage class under the x-amz-storage-class header in your PUT API operation.

There are multiple ways of enabling S3 Intelligent-Tiering for data in the S3 bucket or for newly uploaded data.

You can enable S3 Intelligent Tiering for folders and files using the AWS S3 console, AWS SDKs, or the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

To assign or update object storage classes, refer to the official AWS documentation on how to set the storage class of an object.

You can incorporate rules into your S3 Lifecycle configuration to instruct Amazon S3 to move objects from their current storage class to S3 Intelligent Tiering.

For more advanced configurations, you can make S3 Intelligent Tiering the default storage class for newly created data.

You can activate one or both of the archive access tiers using the API through PutBucketIntelligentTieringConfiguration, the CLI, or the AWS S3 console.