Table of contents
1.
Introduction  
2.
Amazon S3 glacier Data Model
2.1.
Vault
2.2.
Archive
2.3.
Job
2.4.
Notification configuration
3.
Are you a first-time Amazon S3 glacier user?
4.
Supported operations in Amazon S3 glacier
5.
Accessing Amazon S3 glacier
6.
Frequently Asked Questions
6.1.
What is the difference between Amazon s3 glacier and Amazon s3?
6.2.
What is the Amazon s3 glacier deep archive?
6.3.
Can users upload files directly to Amazon glacier s3?
7.
Conclusion
Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024

Amazon S3 Glacier

Author Vidhi Singh
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Introduction  

Amazon S3 Glacier is a durable, secure, and low-cost Amazon S3 class for storing, archiving, and long-term data backup. It provides long-term storage for archived data, which we don't need to access frequently. It has no restrictions on the kind of data we store. 

 

This article the Amazon S3 glacier in detail.

Amazon S3 glacier Data Model

The main components of the Amazon s3 glacier model are :

Vault

Vault is basically a container for storing archives. When a vault is created, firstly, we specify its name and AWS region. Each vault has its unique address. An account can create a vault in any AWS region but within a region, it must have its unique name. A vault can store an unlimited number of archives in it.

The general form is:

https://<region-specific endpoint>/<account-id>/vaults/<vaultname>

 

Archive

An Archive is a data that can be of any form like a video, photo, or document and is stored in the vault. Each archive has its unique ID which is unique in each AWS region it is stored. The general form is:

HTTPS://<region-specific endpoint>/<account-id>/vaults/<vault-name>/archives/<archive-id> 

 

An AWS account can create vaults in any supported AWS Region. Within a Region, an account must use unique vault names. An AWS account can create same-named vaults in different Regions.
An unlimited number of archives can be stored in a vault. 

Job

An S3 Glacier Job is used to retrieve an archive, perform a selected query on an archive, or retrieve an inventory of a vault. A job is initiated when we perform a query on an archive. Amazon S3 Glacier selects and runs the query and gives the result Amazon s3. 

Every job is identified uniquely  by a URI of the form:

https://<region-specific endpoint>/<account-id>/vaults/<vault-name>/jobs/<job-id>

 

For every job, S3 Glacier maintains data like job type, description, creation date, completion date, and job status. Information about a specific job or a list of all the jobs associated with a vault can be obtained very easily. The set(list) of jobs that S3 Glacier returns include all the in-progress and recently finished jobs.

Notification configuration

Amazon s3 glacier has a notification mechanism, which notifies the user when the job is done as these jobs take a long duration to complete. 

Every notification configuration resource is uniquely identified by a URI of the form:

https://<region-specific endpoint>/<account-id>/vaults/<vault-name>/notification-configuration

 

S3 Glacier supports operations to get, set, and delete a notification configuration. When a notification configuration is deleted, no notifications are sent when any data retrieval operation on the vault is complete.

Are you a first-time Amazon S3 glacier user?

Since you are a first-time user, firstly, you will create a vault, upload and download the archive on it, and finally delete the archive and the vault. These steps in detail are as follows:

For a first-time user, firstly, we are supposed to create a vault, upload and download the archive on it, and finally delete the archive and the vault. These steps in detail are:

Step 1: For the first step, we need to set up an AWS account and create an administrator user account in Amazon s3 glacier.

Step 2: Now, we should create a vault. to create a vault we will open the Amazon s3 glacier console and select the AWS region and then click o get started. After submitting all the required information, our vault will be listed on the S3 glacier vault page.

Step 3: After creating the vault, we will upload the archive to the vault. We can upload an archive by using java or by using. NET.

Step 4: In this step user will download the archive that he uploads in the previous step. It can either be done by initiating a retrieval job or by downloading the bytes of data after the job is completed.

Step 5: In this step, the user will delete the archive from the vault that the user uploaded in step 3. Deleting can be done by using AWS SDK for Java or .NET or by using the Amazon s3 command-line interface.

Step 6: In this step, a user can delete a vault from Amazon s3 glacier. To delete a vault, all its archives need to be deleted. It can be deleted by using the Amazon s3 glacier console. 

Supported operations in Amazon S3 glacier

There are a set of operations supported by Amazon s3 glacier, which helps to work with vaults and archives. These operations are :

Vault operations: Amazon S3 Glacier provides operations to create and delete vaults. The vault description provides information such as the number of archives, creation date, and total size used by all archives that can be obtained in an AWS region. 

Archive operations: Amazon S3 Glacier provides operations to upload and delete archives. The user cannot update an existing archive, he has to delete the existing archive, and only then can he upload a new archive.

Jobs: Users can create and initiate an Amazon S3 Glacier job to retrieve an archive,  select a query on an archive, or get an inventory of a vault.
Some of the operations in Amazon s3 glaciers are asynchronous, like retrieving an archive and retrieving vault inventory. For these operations, first, we need to initiate the job and then download the output for that job.

Accessing Amazon S3 glacier

Amazon s3 glacier uses HTTP as transport and JSON as a message serialization format. When using the REST API directly, the user should directly write the necessary code to sign and authenticate his requests. 

Check this article Amazon Hirepro here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Amazon s3 glacier and Amazon s3?

Amazon S3 is a secure, simple, and fast storage service, while Amazon S3 Glacier is slow and used for archiving solutions.

What is the Amazon s3 glacier deep archive?

It is a storage class designed to provide secure and durable storage for a large amount of data.

Can users upload files directly to Amazon glacier s3?

Earlier, users couldn't upload data directly to the s3 glacier. But in 2018, AWS announced s3 PUT to the glacier, which helps indirectly upload data to the glacier.

Conclusion

This article extensively discusses the Amazon s3 glacier, its properties and other aspects. You can read more articles on AWS to enrich your knowledge on the topic.

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