What are the benefits of using Amazon S3?
By Ravi Jayagopal | S3MediaVault
Why You Should Use Amazon S3
Amazon S3 - which is an acronym for "Simple Storage Service" - is Cloud Storage for files used by websites and businesses and apps of all types, shapes and sizes. Think of it as Google Drive for your website. Except, simple cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive have many limitations that S3 doesn't have when it comes to commercial businesses, websites, apps and online services.
Using Amazon S3 (rather than hosting on your own server) and using Amazon CloudFront (rather than a different Content Delivery Network (CDN)), offers a ton of benefits:
- Outsource your media files to S3 and reduce the strain on your website
- You shouldn't be hosting your media files on a regular web host that’s not truly meant for media hosting
- Scalable
- Secure
- Simple
- Has a web interface (which takes just a teeny-tiny bit to get used to, but is powerful and it works great) to manage your files and their security settings. But if you use S3MediaVault, you can manage all of your S3 files from your own website, without having to log in to AWS.
- S3 becomes the centralized hub where all your media files are stored.
- S3 integrates with all other Amazon Web Services (AWS), like MediaConvert, Transcribe and CloudFront.
- S3 has deep integration with their own CDN, CloudFront. That means more integrated and powerful solutions can be created, and have already been created.
- And when you use a plugin like S3MediaVault.com , it integrates with Amazon S3, CloudFront, AWS MediaConvert to create HLS true streaming videos, AWS Transcribe to create Transcriptions of your Audio & Video, etc.
- S3MediaVault can create true-streaming Video and Audio as well as Progressive Download Video, Audio, PDF and other files.
- And you can transcribe your Audios and Videos with the click of a button.
- And you can add CloudFront to it and make your files load super-fast regardless where your audience is from in the world
- And you can create a S3 Video Player, S3 Audio Player, Audio and Video Playlists, and more, all using S3MediaVault.
The list is just endless.
And because AWS has such fantastic API’s for developers, there are a lot of software and services and WordPress Plugins - both free and paid, and sometimes really inexpensive ones too - that have been created to make your website work with Amazon S3 and all of the integrated services.
And that means you get a huge array of options to choose from, and at super-competitive prices.
Or if you’re technical, have the time and resources, and that's a priority, then you could even develop your own software and plugins too - which is how I ended up creating S3MediaVault back in late 2008/early 2009, and the plugin was launched later in 2009.
And I did that because there was almost zero competition for such plugins back then. And the lone plugin that was in existence at the time (they're defunct now), didn't have everything covered, especially the features I wanted, and I felt I could build a better mouse-trap. And so I did 🙂
