Amazon S3 – Cost Saver – Intelligent Tiering

Amazon S3 now supports a new storage class called Intelligent Tiering. This will be a very attractive option for many customers who have datasets that are accessed in unpredictable patterns. You can set this storage class when uploading any new data. However, the below instructions will allow you to set up a lifecycle policy that will change the storage class of data that already exists in your bucket.

To set up a lifecycle policy to change the storage class of the data currently stored in your Amazon S3 bucket, follow the below steps.

1. Visit the S3 console and go to your bucket of interest.
2. Click on the Management tab at the top and select + Add lifecycle rule.
3. Enter a rule name of your choice (e.g., Convert to Intelligent Tiering storage class). Unless you want to filter which data is converted to the new storage class, you can leave the prefix/tag filter field empty.
4. Click Next.
5. Select the Current Version checkbox unless you have previously enabled versioning. Click the + Add transition link that appears.
6. Select Transition to Intelligent-Tiering after in the dropdown box. You can leave the Days after creation value at its default of 0.
7. Click Next.
8. We do not need to set any expirations at this time. Click Next.
9. You can review your settings and if all looks well, click Save.

You now have a lifecycle policy in place that will move any existing data (and new data that comes in) to the Intelligent-Tiering storage class.

Questions:

What’s the difference between setting up Intelligent-Tiering Archive configurations under Properties and creating a lifecycle?

A lifecycle policy is a useful way to get the property set on all existing objects in a bucket as they will age into the policy after the time you set (after 0 days in the example above). If you have any empty bucket and are adding new objects, just setting bucket properties will work fine.

Why do I still see the standard class when upload file, i upload to s3 through AWS S3 console?

The instructions above are for setting a Lifecycle Policy. If you’re uploading via the console, you can set the S3-IT storage class right away. Keep in mind objects smaller than 128KB will remain in the Standard storage class.