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What is the difference between Amazon S3 and EBS?

Amazon S3 and EBS are both storage services provided by Amazon Web Services. However, they have different characteristics and serve different purposes. This is a detailed comparison of the two services.

Amazon S3: Amazon S3 offers an object storage service that allows you to store any amount of data anywhere on the internet. It is used to store and retrieve data, archive content, distribute it, and create data lakes. Amazon S3 has some unique features. https://www.sevenmentor.com/amazon-web-services-training-institute-in-pune.php

Object storage: S3 stores the data as objects. These consist of data, a unique URL, and metadata. Unique URLs allow objects to be accessed via HTTP/HTTPS.

Scalability and Durability S3 can store virtually any amount of data. It has been designed to offer 99.999999999% durability (11 nines), meaning that data will be highly resistant to loss.

Data Accessibility: S3 offers high availability and allows users to access data at any time, anywhere. It supports multiple storage classes including Standard, Intelligent Tiering, Glacier and others. These offer varying levels and costs of availability.

Bucket-based structure: In S3, data is organized in buckets that act as top-level containers for objects. Each bucket can hold an unlimited number objects and has a unique name.

Lifecycle Management: Based on predefined rules, S3 provides lifecycle management policies which automate the transfer of objects from one storage class to another. This allows for cost optimization by moving data over time to cheaper storage classes.

Data Encryption S3 provides server-side encryption for data protection at rest. It offers client-side encryption options and integrates with AWS Key Management Service for key management.

Access Control: S3 provides fine-grained control of access through bucket policies and ACLs. It integrates with AWS Identity and Access Management for user-level management.

Rich Ecosystem: S3 is integrated with many other AWS services such as AWS Lambda and Amazon CloudFront.

EBS (Elastic block store): EBS, or Elastic Block Store, is a storage service that provides persistent storage volumes to Amazon EC2 instances. It is used to run databases, host applications, and store data that requires low latency access. Here are some of the main features and characteristics that EBS offers:

EBS Block Storage Volumes: EBS offers block-level volumes of storage that can be added to EC2 instances. These volumes behave as raw, unformatted blocks devices. Users can install their own file system and manage data at the block-level.

Performance and latency: EBS Volumes offer low-latency and high IOPS for demanding workloads. The performance of the volume depends on its type (e.g. SSD-backed or HDD-backed).

Data Persistence - EBS volumes persist and are independent of EC2 instances. Data stored on EBS volumes persists after an EC2 instance has been terminated or stopped.

Snapshots and backup: EBS offers point-in-time snap shots, which are incremental copies of the data on a volume. These snapshots are useful for restoring data or creating new volumes. Snapshots are kept in Amazon S3.

Volume Resizing. EBS volumes may be resized, without affecting data availability or performance. Users can increase or decrease their volume size as required.

Replication and availability: EBS volumes can be replicated in a specific Zone of Availability (AZ) to ensure durability. Users can use Amazon EBS Multi-Attach or create mirrored volumes to achieve greater availability across multiple Availability Zones.

EBS has built-in encryption using AWS Key Management Service. Users can choose whether to encrypt volumes using their own keys, or AWS managed keys.

Integration with EC2 : EBS integrates tightly with Amazon EC2 instances. This allows for seamless volume attachment, detachment and management. Elastic Volumes, for dynamic volume resizing, and Elastic Snapshots are some of the features it offers.

The main differences between Amazon S3 (Object Storage) and EBS (EBS Block Storage Service) are their purposes and use cases. S3 is a service for storing unstructured data in large quantities, while EBS provides block storage for applications that require persistent access with low latency. Both services are unique and can be used together to create scalable storage solutions within the AWS ecosystem.