Title

AWS re:Invent 2023 - Beyond 11 9s of durability: Data protection with Amazon S3 (STG319)

Summary

Amazon S3 promises 11 nines of durability, achieved through a durability-oriented culture and mechanisms like the durability review.
Durability threats such as storage device failure and data corruption are mitigated by techniques like erasure coding and end-to-end integrity checksums.
Human error is a significant risk for data loss, with accidental deletion and overwriting being common issues.
S3 versioning protects against accidental deletes and overwrites by maintaining multiple versions of an object.
S3 replication, including cross-region replication, ensures data durability across different regions and accounts, with features like S3 Replication Time Control (RTC) providing an SLA-backed replication time.
S3 Object Lock prevents malicious deletions and alterations by making objects immutable.
S3 multi-region access points offer a managed failover mechanism for business continuity.
S3 Storage Lens provides visibility into storage usage and activity, including data protection metrics.
The session concludes with a reminder of S3's robust architecture and culture, and the importance of features like versioning, object lock, replication, multi-region access points, and storage lens for comprehensive data protection.

The durability review process is a critical part of S3's approach to data protection, ensuring that every change is scrutinized for potential durability risks.
S3 versioning is considered a foundational feature and a general best practice within AWS, highlighting its importance in data protection strategies.
The ability to replicate data across regions and accounts not only provides durability but also compliance with various regulatory requirements.
S3 Object Lock's compliance mode offers an extreme level of protection, preventing even root users from altering or deleting locked objects, which is significant for meeting strict regulatory standards.
S3 multi-region access points simplify the creation and management of multi-region storage solutions, which is crucial for organizations looking to maintain high availability and disaster recovery capabilities.
S3 Storage Lens acts as an overarching analytics tool that provides insights into the effectiveness of an organization's data protection measures across their S3 environment.