AWS S3 is a popular cloud storage solution for small businesses and enterprises. It’s low cost, coupled with high availability, makes it an ideal choice for storing data files. While AWS S3 is more cost-effective than other cloud storage services such as Google Cloud Storage or Azure Blob Storage, there are some drawbacks to using AWS S3 as the primary storage service. With your own AWS S3 server, you have complete control over all aspects of system management. You won’t be locked into an SLA or need to pay monthly fees for your storage needs. There are also several benefits to using your own AWS S3 server instead of renting space from Amazon Web Services as a third-party vendor.
Better control over how your data is managed.
The most obvious and fundamental advantage of using your own AWS S3 server is better control over how data is managed and secured. While AWS S3 is certainly robust enough to handle the most rigorous environments, there is always going to be a certain level of confidence in knowing that you have full administrative control over your data. The total cost of ownership will be dramatically reduced as there will be no need to pay for additional AWS S3 storage or unnecessary features. You can also be sure that data isn’t being transmitted to other destinations and that it isn’t being stored in any other locations. This provides far more confidence in your data’s security and overall integrity.
More granular permissions.
Another advantage of using your own AWS S3 server is the ability to set granular permissions. AWS S3 is built on a shared access control system that grants administrators a high level of permissions. With a third-party vendor, you cannot control who has administrative access to your AWS S3 server. With your own AWS S3 server, you can set up fine-grained access control policies for each user or application, so that only those with proper authorization can access or write data to your server. This can be easily set up with cloud access security brokers like CloudLock, or even a local firewall like pfSense.
You can integrate your own AWS S3 server with other core services.
AWS S3 is built for interoperability with other AWS services. It provides a standardized way to store and retrieve data, and has been integrated with many third-party services to provide even more functionality. However, it’s important to note that these integrations are entirely at the discretion of Amazon Web Services. If they decide to discontinue an integration, or change the terms of use of their service, you may lose functionality or even access to your data. While a third-party vendor can build integrations with AWS S3, they aren’t obligated to do so. The terms of service may prohibit them from building integrations with other AWS services such as Lambda, or the services may simply not be part of their roadmap.
You can have greater confidence in the reliability of your data storage.
While Amazon Web Services has built a robust service, there’s always a certain amount of uncertainty as to how long the service will be available. While AWS has built out several redundant data centers in various locations throughout the world to handle its high volume of traffic, your data may be hosted in a data center that is susceptible to natural disasters, power outages, or other acts of nature. There is also no guarantee that your data will remain in the same data center if you are using the Amazon Standard Storage option. You may be moved to a different location for any number of reasons. This can impact your uptime and your ability to recover data. If you’re hosting your own AWS S3 server, you can choose to host it in a data center that is best suited for your needs. You can also choose to host it in multiple locations to ensure that your data remains available even if there is an outage in a single location.
No risk of losing access to your data if AWS changes its service terms.
As we mentioned earlier, AWS S3 is a service provided by Amazon Web Services as a third-party vendor. They aren’t obligated to provide service for an indefinite period of time. This can leave you with a false sense of security that your data will remain accessible even if Amazon changes their service terms. If Amazon decides to discontinue their AWS S3 service, or change the terms of service so that it’s no longer suitable for your needs, you may lose access to your data. While you may be able to migrate that data to another service, there is no guarantee that the service will be able to handle the volume of data stored in your AWS S3 account. While it’s unlikely that Amazon would shutter the AWS S3 service, it’s something to keep in mind when building your business’s core infrastructure.
You can keep more of your business’s value chain in-house.
If you’re managing your own AWS S3 server, you can control which services are used to build out your infrastructure. You can choose to use Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Amazon Relational Database Service, Amazon Simple Storage Service, or any other Amazon Web Service that best fits your needs. You can also use other third-party services, and you won’t be locked into using AWS services that may not be best suited for your needs. You can also use your own hardware to host the server, or use a managed hosting provider that specializes in high-traffic environments. This will allow you to scale your infrastructure as demand increases, and you won’t be limited to a single AWS availability zone like you would be with an AWS S3 bucket.
Conclusion
There are many advantages to using your own AWS S3 server instead of renting space from Amazon Web Services as a third-party vendor. You have complete control over all aspects of system management, can set more granular permissions, and have greater confidence in the reliability of your data storage. There are also several benefits to using your own AWS S3 server instead of renting space from Amazon Web Services as a third-party vendor. You can better control how your data is managed, have greater granular permissions, integrate your AWS S3 server with other core services, have greater confidence in the reliability of your data storage, and have no risk of losing access to your data if AWS changes its service terms.
