Amazon AWS – S3 Lifecycle Storage Management with Glacier

Amazon AWS – S3 (Simple Storage System) provides the lifecycle storage management system to reduce the operating cost by moving the data in to different storage  classes (“S3 – IA” & “Glacier- Archive” are cheaper storage compare to S3). At the same time , AWS also provides the robust automatic system which enables to move the data from one storage to another using the defined rules (XML format). There are two important actions performed by lifecycle management system.

• Transition actions:

Moving the objects from one storage to another storage based on the rules which you have created. For an example, if you would like to move the files which 30 days older from s3 standard to S3 – IA storage , you could define in rules. Rest of the things will be taken care by AWS.

• Expiration actions:

You could set the expiry date for the objects which are no longer required after certain period. Amazon S3 deletes the expired objects on your behalf.

Where to utilize the Amazon S3 Lifecycle Management ?

• Application logs which are required after certain period of time.
• Documents which are accessed for limited period of time. After that, these documents are less frequently accessed.
• Health care records, financial documents and data that must be retained for regulatory compliance.

Note: Glacier is not available in the following highlighted datacenters.  So Please do not create S3 bucket on these datacenters if you are planning to use lifecycle management.

Glacier DataCenter options

Let’s see the demonstration of Amazon S3 Lifecycle Management:

1.  Navigate to S3  and see the existing bucket.

Bucket Listing

2. Navigate to the bucket properties tab. Enable the versioning for the bucket.

Enable Versioning – AWS S3

3. Click on the versioning  (Disabled – Radio button) to enable it .

Enable Versioning – AWS S3 3

4. Navigate to bucket management tab and Click on “Add Life Cycle Rule”  .

Add Lifecycle Rule -S3

5. Enter the life cycle rule name.

Enter Lifecycle Rule Name

6. Click on “Current Version” to configure the object  transition.

Configure Transition – S3 – Lifecycle Management

The following diagram would make you understand better.

• Transition to STANDARD-IA storage after 30 days .

Diagram – Move objects after 30 days to Standard – IA

• Transition to Amazon Glacier after 60 days .

Diagram – Move objects after 60 days to Glacier

7 . Click on “Previous Version” to configure the object  transition.

Configure Transition – For Previous version Object

Please refer the following diagrams.

• Transition to STANDARD-IA storage after 30 days for previous version items  .

Diagram – Previous Version – Life Cycle.

• Transition previous version items to Amazon Glacier after 60 days .

Diagram – Previous Version Archive to Glacier

8. Configure the object expiry for both current and previous versions.

Configure object expiration

The below flow charts will explain better.

Delete the files after 425 days – Current version

Delete the files after 425 days – Previous version

9. You could also have option to clean up the incomplete uploads to save the storage space.

Delete the incomplete multi-part uploads

10. Review the life cycle rule for bucket “unixarena” & save it .

Review S3 Lifecycle Rule